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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27171257">well, I know that we've been barely holding on; to tell the truth I can't believe we got this far, running near on empty (I wish somebody would have told me)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/What_Is_A_Mild_Opinion/pseuds/What_Is_A_Mild_Opinion'>What_Is_A_Mild_Opinion</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Golden Cracks and Miracles (This Bittersweet Being is Enough, With You) [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Avatar: The Last Airbender</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Katara (Avatar)-centric, Katara and Sokka are so cute, Katara doesn't think she's a hero, Katara has serious trauma, Katara is great at emotions as long as they aren't her own, Katara is so amazing, Katara would die for her friends, Let Katara and Sokka be mad at Hakoda 2k20, No beta we die like Sleep-Deprived College Kids, Sokka is a Good Older Brother, Someone give this child healer a HUG, Suki is a Good Older Sister, The Gaang is a Hot Mess, The Gaang is not amused by this, The Gaang loves Katara So Much, The Gaang loves each other So Much, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, War sucks, he'll get his redemption though, how is this girl still underrated?, let these children rest. good god, minor Kataang, the comparison of trauma to infection is back hahahA</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-07 01:34:16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>24,576</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27171257</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/What_Is_A_Mild_Opinion/pseuds/What_Is_A_Mild_Opinion</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“I know that I’ve done some good things," Katara said. "Maybe they were even heroic, but… I was just trying to protect my family, and make it through to the other end. It just so happened that I helped end a war while doing it. And now everyone keeps telling me I’m a hero.” </p><p>She looked over at Suki. Did she look as broken as she felt? Had the fissures that criss-crossed her soul like spiderwebs finally made it through to the surface for the whole world to see? </p><p>“I don’t feel like a hero,” she whispered. “I just feel like I’m covered in cracks that won’t leave.”<br/>-----<br/>Katara loves, and she hopes. She breaks, and she heals, and she breathes through the bruises, and she ends a war. Not necessarily in that order.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Katara &amp; Aang, Katara &amp; Hakoda, Katara &amp; Iroh, Katara &amp; Sokka, Katara &amp; Sokka &amp; Kanna, Katara &amp; Suki, Katara &amp; Zuko &amp; Toph</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Golden Cracks and Miracles (This Bittersweet Being is Enough, With You) [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1944868</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>98</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Infinity and Happy Endings (I Am Not A Hero, But You Think Me One, So I Must Be Worth Something Just As Much)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>HOOO BUDDY, this is a long one. Buckle in you guys, this is gonna be a trip. </p><p>This fic does discuss the temporary death of the air child, but it doesn't stick, so I didn't mark it in the warnings. Zuko also eats lightning, but he also recovers. I don't feel like it's super graphic, but it is there, so consider yourself warned. This fic will discuss: Katara and Sokka's grief over the death of their mother, their feelings of resentment and anger at being left behind by their father, the cost of war, muted reactions to the unfairness of war due to a lifetime of exposure to it, and (briefly) the abuse and neglect both Ozai and the Beifongs gave their children. Some of these topics are more present than others, but all are either directly discussed or otherwise implied, so if these topics may be triggering, either proceed with caution or do not read this fic. </p><p>Despite the hard topics, I love Katara, and I love this fic. I feel like she is such an interesting and compelling character, and just overall really awesome. So I'm giving our girl some love (61 pages in google docs of it). I will explore Sokka and Katara's wonderful sibling relationship, and what it was to be fighting alongside family on the front lines of a war. The good, the bad, and the ugly.</p><p>As always, all hail the Language Key. The Language Key is God, and we are it's faithful subjects. I do play with canon a little in this, like, really really tiny amounts.</p><p>Katara loves with her everything, and I love her character so much, so here you go! Enjoy, and don't forget to have fun with the group parts!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When Katara was little, she had loved to listen to stories. In particular, she loved to listen to stories from her grandmother.</p><p>When the sun set over the distant horizon, and the moon rose up into the sky, making the glaciers seem to glow from within, as perplexing as it seemed to her, she woke up in a way that the sun didn’t wake her. A humming would rise within her veins, and the world seemed to come into focus. </p><p>Sometimes, she caught her father, or mother, or grandmother, or anyone in the tribe except Sokka really, watching her as the sun set. They had noticed that she woke with not the sun, but the moon.</p><p>Katara didn’t exactly know why, but it unnerved them. It didn’t unnerve her. She couldn’t remember ever being any other way. But it must have been a waterbending thing, because no one else felt like her.</p><p>Once, she and Sokka had been sitting on the edge of the ice, leaning up against each other and watching the sun set. Katara had been seven at the time, and the memory was beginning to blur at the edges, the details falling into the obscurity of time. But she still remembered it. </p><p>Sokka had picked up her smaller hand, playing with her fingers in the way both of them did when they were thinking, and he had tried to explain it to her.</p><p><em> It’s not that you don’t like the sun, or that it doesn’t help you, </em> he had said, cupping her cool fingers between his own warmer ones. <em> The sun works fine for you, but when the moon comes up, you change, almost.  </em></p><p>He had looked her in the eyes, grey-blue on ocean skies, and he had smiled in the way that he only smiled for her. <em> It’s like you wake up all over again. Like the moon is filling you up, and you just become </em> more <em> . </em></p><p><em> More what? </em>Katara had asked, searching his eyes for answers neither of them knew yet.</p><p>He had smiled at her like she was the sun, and he was seeking fire. <em> More yourself, </em> he had said. <em> Like you were made for the moon, or the moon was made for you.  </em></p><p>Years later, Princess Yue will tell her about the push and pull of the tides, the eternal dance of the moon and the ocean, and her bright blue eyes will reflect the setting sun. That same night, a burning, broken boy  will tell her, <em> You rise with the moon. I rise with the sun. </em>His words will spill from his lips like tongues of flame, cruel and consuming in a way that is so different from herself.</p><p>Yue’s words would sound like confidence, like waves on the shore, and stars reflected in the curls of ocean waves. Zuko’s words would taste like smoke and insecurity, blueblack, and broken, and right, in a twisted kind of way that is also wrong. </p><p>She would never forget what they told her, but it was Sokka’s words, that felt like stardust and the pull of the tides and the feeling of home, that she will remember before all else. <em> You were made for the moon, or the moon was made for you. </em></p><p>She will never tell anyone else what he said to her. Maybe it was selfish, but she didn’t care. That belonged to her, and her brother, and the endless stars. No one else.</p><p>Over time, her family learned to indulge her strange habit of waking with the night. So, whenever the moon rose, and Katara just couldn't fall asleep, because there was too much moonlight under her skin, too much stardust in her veins, she would beg her grandmother for stories. </p><p>Sokka would pull himself from bed and pad over to where the fire flickered, yawning. He would drag his blanket with him, and the two of them would layer their blankets over each other and sit, curled into each other’s sides, watching their grandmother spin stories from nothingingness with rapt eyes. </p><p>Sokka’s favorite stories were adventure stories, with daring escapes and narrow rescues and twists that made your bones rattle with shock. Katara’s favorite stories were ones with creatures that didn’t exist, and worlds they would never know, fantasies that made reality seem almost dim in comparison.</p><p>It was their unspoken rule that neither of them asked for stories about war. It hit too close to home. Too close to the glazed eyes far too common in the village, and the haunted looks of the men who went into battle before the Southern Water Tribe withdrew from the war. Too close to their little war-ruined world, hollowed out and haunted by ghosts of their own name and making.</p><p>So they never asked for stories about war. </p><p>After their mother died, they stopped asking for the stories with death at all. It hit too close to the aching space in their world that seemed to spread a little more every day. </p><p>When their father left, and took with him too much of their rapidly crumbling world, they asked for the same kind of story every time. </p><p>Sokka would tug her closer, and she would loop her arms around his waist, half burying her face in his shoulder, both of them holding each other up, and every time he would say the same thing. <em> Something with a happy ending.  </em></p><p>Every time he would say the same thing. And every time, Katara thought she saw something in her grandmother’s eyes crumble, like she didn’t have the strength in her creaking bones to hold up the heaviness already sinking into theirs. But then again, Katara wasn’t sure that was the kind of strength anyone else could have for you.</p><p>They always asked for the same thing. <em> Something with a happy ending.  </em></p><p>Gran-Gran switched to a different kind of story, at this request. She told them stories about heroes. Stories about triumphs, and victories, and beacons of light in the darkness guiding sailors through the storm.</p><p>The stories were always the same, even if the details were different.</p><p>The main character, the hero around which the story centered, would begin his journey to accomplish a task, or right a wrong, or find something, or someone. They would go through a harrowing journey, in which they discovered a version of themselves that made the world better. They would finish their task, or right the wrong, or find what they were looking for. And then they would live happily ever after. They would get their happy ending.</p><p>Stories like these, where the family is reunited, or found along the journey, and the hero gets to rest when they have finished, were Sokka and Katara’s guilty pleasures. </p><p>That idea, of an end, clear and definitive, with a rosy world of healing painted behind it, was a hopeless wish of theirs. </p><p>Katara believed in heroes. She believed in happy endings.</p><p>(She just never thought that she or her brother would get one of their own.)</p><p>Katara believed that one day, the Avatar would return. He would stop the firebenders, and end the war. </p><p>Sokka didn’t. He looked into the future, spreading into eternity beyond their small feet, and he saw nothing but smoke, and ash, and a war that never really ends. Scars that never really heal.</p><p>It was a cruel twist of fate, that neither of them was wrong, exactly. It was crueler that neither of them was exactly right, either. </p><p>Back when she was younger, and still naive enough to think that the war raging in her world, in everyones’ worlds, big and small, could be simplified to right and wrong, Katara believed in happy endings. In the finish line. The place that you could get to and say, <em> I’m done, </em>and leave the past to its own.</p><p>But war comes for everyone in the end, and fate is a cruel and capricious thing, and somehow, she got to see the war end. According to some, she got to end it.</p><p>Somehow or another, Katara made it. </p><p>She did what, deep down, she had never thought she would get to do. She got to see the end of the war. </p><p>(But was it really the end, she was starting to wonder? Was there ever really an end?)</p><p>This was the finish line. This was supposed to be the finish line. The place where she could say, <em> I’m done </em>, and leave the world in hands bigger, and older, and more capable of holding it.</p><p>When Katara was younger, she believed in heroes, and happy endings, and happily ever afters.</p><p>She helped end the war. Personally.</p><p>She was, by all accounts, a hero. This was supposed to be the part where she got her own happy ending.</p><p>She didn’t feel like a hero. And this didn’t feel like a happy ending.</p><p>---</p><p>The first time Katara really realized she was writing history, that her name would be remembered, one way or another, was when the Earth Kingdom general obsessed with the Avatar state called her, <em> Mighty Katara. </em></p><p>She was pretty sure she had just gawked at him for a few seconds like a badgerfrog looking down the throat of a foxowl. </p><p><em> You don’t even know me, </em>she had wanted to say, and then it hit her like a snowfall. He did know her. There were people out there, friends and enemies alike, who knew her, just because she had said, enough is enough, and tried. </p><p>She had the strange tilting, falling sensation of staring into space until the eternity of it seems to swallow you. </p><p>Katara <em> was </em>the badgerfrog, staring down the pitch-black maw of time, or history, or remembrance. For the first time, she realized that this wasn’t something she could bow out of anymore. History had already sunken its claws into her name, her face, her words, her deeds. One way or another, she would be remembered as a girl who tried.</p><p>It felt like frost, like burning, like veins full of lava and golden cold.</p><p>It felt like eternity. And it was terrifying.</p><p>Katara looked up at the fireworks for them, for her and her bruised little family, and all she could think of were Gran-Gran’s stories.</p><p><em> Something with a happy ending, </em>she and Sokka had specified, because there were too many that didn’t have happy endings. Stories with heroes that don’t make it to the finish line. </p><p>She thought of failure, and stories where everything they had to give still wasn’t enough. She looked over at Aang and Sokka, the fireworks reflected in their eyes, their mouths wide and faces bright with awe, and she wanted to hide them.</p><p>Hide them from history, from fame and infamy, hide them from the persistence of time, and the record of memory. </p><p><em> Obscurity is safety </em>, she had read once. It had sounded ridiculous then. She understands it now.</p><p>She wanted to hide them from the world. She knew she couldn’t. So she prayed.</p><p><em> Tui and La </em> , she whispered in the safety of her mind, <em> I know it’s too late for us now. History has our names.  </em></p><p>She watched the fireworks reflected in their eyes, and prayed with all the moonlight that lingered in her bones. </p><p>
  <em> History has our names now. But, Tui and La, if they must have us too. </em>
</p><p>Aang gave her a grin brighter than the midnight sun, and despairing need flooded her soul.</p><p>
  <em> If they must have us, too, give us a happy ending. </em>
</p><p>----</p><p>Katara hated being wrong. She really, really hated it.</p><p>And, Spirits, did she hate Zuko.</p><p>He burned, constant and unending and with all the rage that made everything she thought about the Fire Nation seem not only justified, but incredibly accurate. He was the epitome of the nightmares she had imagined since the first day the smell of smoke and burnt flesh filled her nose, and everything she could ever think about firebenders was tainted with the same ugly red that had spread from her mother’s ruined form.</p><p>He was everything she hated, and it was all too easy to imagine his cruel golden eyes on the face of her mother’s killer, so she hated him for that, too.</p><p>A part of her knew that was unfair. The rest of her didn’t care, because he was a firebender, and he was hot, and furious, and wrong, burning with everything she despised. He was a firebender, and he was trying to ruin her family, and no firebender was ever going to take her family away from her again. <em> Ever.  </em></p><p>Katara hated Zuko. And Katara <em> really </em> hated being wrong.</p><p>How could he do this, curled across from her in the uneven glow of the crystals? How dare he look so small, so broken? How dare he look so human?</p><p>The fire had gone out behind his golden eyes, and he didn’t look like her nightmares anymore. He just looked… tired. </p><p>His face, no fury to hide behind anymore, looked exhausted, and riddled with cracks. With no flames to cast shadows over his face, painting him in a ghastly, ghoulish light, Zuko looked… like Katara.</p><p>Like he was cracking under the weight of a war he didn’t ask for, and hiding behind his emotions like they were unbreakable shields, instead of what was breaking him.</p><p>Katara really hated being wrong.</p><p>But she was learning how to swallow her bruised pride when she was, so she could put others first.</p><p><em> You always put everyone else first, </em> Sokka had told her once, his eyes dark with wisdom too heavy for his small hands. <em> When will you realize that you need to put yourself first, too, sometimes? </em></p><p>Zuko’s eyes are breakingly, hopelessly hopeful, and he looks so much younger without the rage in his expression. He looks so young, and small, and breakable under her hand.</p><p>Her family comes. </p><p>So does his.</p><p>Azula makes him an offer he can’t resist.</p><p>Katara really hated being wrong. It’s looking like she was right all along. Somehow, that leaves an even more bitter taste on her tongue than being wrong did.</p><p>Aang goes down in a blaze of light, and smoke, and an ear-shattering crack of thunder that she can’t hear over her own scream.</p><p>She catches him. Too late, too late, she catches him.</p><p><em> (Heroes so rarely get happy endings, </em> Katara had thought once, looking at Aang when he wasn’t watching. Something bitterly cold and aching washed through her as she thought it. Later, she would realize it was grief. That she was already mourning him. <em> I hope you will be the exception.) </em></p><p>His body was still warm, and his back was scorching where it lay cradled against her stomach, and his grey eyes were half lidded, and empty. Too empty. Too late.</p><p>Azula laughed, cold as ice and twice as merciless. Katara looked up, and met a pair of golden eyes.</p><p>Zuko’s face was cast in the shadows of the cave, gold reflections of flames dancing in his eyes. All her nightmares come to life. Her failures, back to taunt her again with another body, another corpse of someone she loved.</p><p>She clutched Aang’s body (his corpse, his corpse, his <em> corpse </em> ) closer, and bared her teeth in a snarl. Rage, and grief, and guilt, and a fire that would put Zuko’s to shame reared in her chest. The monsters that slept in her bones <em> screamed </em> , howled in senseless agony, because no, no, <em> no </em> , she couldn’t do this again, <em> not again </em>. </p><p>She bared her teeth in a snarl, pouring all of her fire into that one expression, and Zuko physically recoiled. Good, she thought viciously. Let him be scared of her. Let him be terrified of this monster she had become, this demon he had made with his false words and lying tongue and cruel, senseless fire.</p><p><em> Come closer, </em> the insane, gleeful rage in her eyes called. <em> Come closer, </em> taunted the cruel curl of her lips, the glint of light off her bared teeth, <em> and let me show you how cold the ocean can be. </em></p><p>She was going to kill him. She was going to kill them, or die trying. The monsters in her bones screamed, begging for blood.</p><p>Fire, hot and fierce with a rage she hadn't known, a despairing desperation she couldn’t untangle, appeared in her view. It wasn’t from Zuko.</p><p>Iroh threw himself at his niece and his nephew, and shouted for her to go, to leave.</p><p>The monsters in her bones roared in protest, begging to stay, to fight, to inflict some shred of the pain filling her on the perpetrators. The rest of her knew better.</p><p>She summoned the water that sloshed everywhere in the caves, and shot upward in a graceful spiral that didn’t reflect the pounding pulse of grief within her. She clutched Aang to her, and didn’t look down at him, for fear of losing the fight with her monsters still wailing for retribution.</p><p>Sokka screamed when he saw Aang, when he saw the gaping wound that dripped over his spine. Toph howled, agony dripping from her raw cry when she felt the body in Katara’s arms, the corpse without a heartbeat. Appa’s howl should have split the earth and torn holes in the sky. </p><p>Sokka pulled him from her arms into his, and cradled his body, moaning in a low, scraping cadence that pulled up too raw memories of ash and smoke and blood over ice.</p><p>Katara tipped her head up, because she needed to look away, she couldn’t watch her brother and her sister fall apart over the body of her friend or she would start screaming and never stop. She looked up and up and up, gazing unseeing at the stars and the full moon.</p><p>The full moon. The moon was full.</p><p>Her head snapped around, her eyes honing in on the glowing celestial. Full, or so close as to be indistinguishable.</p><p>The moon was full. <em> The moon was full. </em></p><p>Katara’s wet gasp was barely there. Toph must have thought it was just her crying. Sokka knew better.</p><p>He looked up, finally tearing his eyes from Aang’s broken figure. The broken, fading light behind his eyes, hopeless, all consuming grief, almost shattered her right there. Almost broke what little strength she had managed to scrape up from her gutted depths. Almost.</p><p>“What?” he said, his voice hoarse and raspy with the crushing demands of love without purpose. </p><p>She wouldn’t do this again. She had sworn, to herself, to the stars and the moon and the memory of the woman she had failed by just existing, that no firebender would ever take her family from her again. She had sworn. And Katara didn’t ever break promises.</p><p>She looked down at Aang, curled, dead, and cooling, and <em> dead, </em>in Sokka’s arms. Sokka’s arms wrapped around him, one hand cupped around the back of his head, tilting his face into his chest like he was trying to protect him from the world, hide him from Death. </p><p><em> I can’t do this again, </em> she thought. </p><p>Months flashed behind her eyes, months cast in the gray-blue tinge of grief, barely there in her memories except for the vague feeling of drowning above air, drowning in the empty space left behind by someone else she and her brother had loved.</p><p>
  <em> We can’t do this again.  </em>
</p><p>She looked up at the moon, hanging full and brilliant above them. She looked back down at her pocket, where a small vial lay cool against her hip. The tiny case of water had never felt heavier. Determination flooded her. Or maybe it was desperation. Maybe they weren’t so different in the end.</p><p>
  <em> We can’t do this again. We won’t. </em>
</p><p>She pulled Aang from Sokka’s arms. For a second, he looked at her, and his eyes were those of a cornered wolf, savage and defensive and willing to die if it meant they would kill the threat. His fingers tightened on Aang’s body, and then loosened.</p><p>If anyone else had tried to take Aang from him, she thought he might have bitten them. But it wasn’t anyone else. It was Katara. And that was their relationship. They trusted each other in a way they would never trust anyone else. Years of love, and defense, and the security that had come with the other coming every time one of them needed help had gone into that trust. Katara would die before giving it up.</p><p>She scooped Aang into her arms, cradling his head to her collarbone, and took off towards Appa. “Come on!” she yelled.</p><p>Toph and Sokka scrambled up from the ground, tripping and cursing and angrily swiping tears from their cheeks. They ran after her. Sokka vaulted up Appa’s legs, landing in the saddle just in time to twist and catch Toph, who had thrown herself up with a well-placed earth platform.</p><p>Normally, they were a lot slower than this. But Katara knew they had heard the desperation, the furious determination, the tentative current of hope running through her words. </p><p>Katara had a plan. And they knew, too.</p><p>Appa took off.</p><p>Katara settled Aang against Appa’s forehead, carefully, carefully. As she looked at his whole back for the first time, the ugly truth of the wound made itself known with a cavernous, gaping black depression in the center, red and black lines branching and twining across his skin like twisted miniature versions or the lightning that had ripped his life from him. Katara fought the urge to throw up.</p><p>She uncapped the tiny vial with trembling fingers. The water coiled into the moonlight, shimmering like trapped stars. The spinning circle of water began to glow. She lowered it into his back, and let the tugging within her take over.</p><p><em> The moon pushes and pulls the ocean, </em> Yugoda had said, teaching them how to heal. <em> Knowing what is wrong, and exactly how to fix it can be incredibly helpful in healing, but sometimes, </em> she had said, her eyes glimmering in the blue light of the water, <em> sometimes, you must trust the moon that lives in you to push and pull as it will. </em></p><p>The tugging grew heavier, and her hands moved over Aang’s back unconsciously, guided by the push and pull of the ocean in her veins.</p><p>The wound closed. The blackness receded some, and the charred flesh morphed under her gaze, shifting to something like bruising. The tugging faded, and she let her hands fall.</p><p>Numbly, she turned him over. His eyes were closed. He didn’t move.</p><p>Something closed in her chest, tight and crushing. She dropped her head to rest against his forehead, and choked back a sob.</p><p>
  <em> Not again. </em>
</p><p>Aang shifted, and took in a rattling breath.</p><p>Katara heard Sokka gasp, and Toph take in a sharp breath.</p><p>She shot upright, and looked down at him, hope and despair and grief and love warring in her chest, in her face, in the frantic, furious fluttering of her heartbeat.</p><p>Aang’s eyes opened, gray and exhausted and full of light, not empty at all. He smiled at her, and she sobbed. Sokka would tell her later that she had smiled back at him.</p><p>His eye’s fluttered closed again, and he must have fallen asleep.</p><p>Katara didn’t care. He had looked at her, full of light and hope and alive, alive, alive. And that was enough.</p><p>She thought of the prayer she had made to Tui and La, watching fireworks in their eyes. She thought of the water from the Spirit Oasis, that Tui and La had traced countless circles in, and she thought maybe they heard her after all.</p><p>Aang woke up three weeks later on a ‘borrowed’ Fire Nation ship. He left.</p><p>She wanted to scream, to cry, to yell at him, to make him understand, <em> You are not alone, you idiot! You don’t have to do this alone, you can’t </em> do this alone, <em> it’s too much for anyone. You can’t do this alone, and you don’t have to! </em></p><p>A pair of eyes, half lidded and gray and so, so, empty flashed behind her eyes, and the part of her that had never left the caverns under Ba Sing Se, the part of her that would never stop feeling the weight of his corpse in her arms, desperately whispered, <em> You can’t leave me here alone again. </em></p><p>But Aang wasn’t there. He was gone and he wasn’t the only one she was mad at. Katara had told Toph once that infection was dangerous because it sat, and it spread. </p><p>Her infection had had so much time to spread. It had spread in the silence, in the grief, in the empty space left behind by not one parent gone but two. It had grown with every time she tried to set the table for four instead of three, had spread every time she saw Sokka trying to teach himself how to fight, and hunt, and provide for a whole village he felt he alone was responsible for. It had spread every time she had seen the hollow weight behind her brother’s eyes. It had spread every time she had to be a mother and a father and a sister all at once.</p><p>Her wound has been spreading, dark and festering, through her everything for years. Since the day her father had thought the best thing was to add to the space eating them up from the inside. It had been festering since he left, left her and her brother alone.</p><p>Katara screamed at him, poured all her bitter fury into her words, spiteful and cruel, and she watched him crumble under her venomous glare, and part of her hated herself for it, but the rest of her didn’t care, because a thousand pounds of pressure had just lifted from her shoulders. The wound was finally out. She wasn’t interested in him fixing her. She was interested in fixing himself.</p><p>Hakoda apologized with hollow words that could never fill the space he left behind, could never fix her. He wilted beneath her, and she only hated herself a little bit. Sokka would never yell at him like this, would never tell him how spurned he felt, how forgotten Hakoda had left them.</p><p>Katara didn’t care. She had learned how to fill the space he had left. She had learned how to be enough for herself. </p><p>“I don’t need your apologies,” she snarled at him, and Hakoda cowered away from her. “I just-” her voice cracked. The wound was open, and the rage was airing, and the grief that had gone buried beneath it for so long was surfacing, demanding to be heard.</p><p>“You can’t fix what you did,” she hissed, and something cracked in Hakoda’s eyes. “We are broken, and you helped break us, and you can’t take that back any more than you can fix us now. I don’t need your apologies, and I don’t want them either. I just-” she hiccuped, “I just want you to be here for us <em> now. </em>”</p><p>Hakoda pulled her into a hug, warm and strong and smaller than the space he had left, but still big. Katara leaned into him, and for the first time in years, she let herself feel small.</p><p>They found Aang. It actually wasn’t all that hard. Turns out there weren’t too many islands nearby, and he had told them on multiple occasions that there was a reason only experienced airbenders went storm flying. It was really dangerous.</p><p>Katara was going to yell at him, she really was. But then he looked up at her, tired and covered in sand and so <em> young. </em>Katara knew what it was like, to feel too small for everything you think you have to fix, everything you have to be. She swept him up into a hug and told him, “You don’t have to do this alone. Don’t try to leave us behind. We want to be here for you, but we can only do that if you let us.”</p><p>He melted into her embrace and murmured, “Okay, Katara. I will. I promise.”</p><p>Katara didn’t end up yelling at him at all that day. But that was okay. If she had her way, she would have the rest of forever to yell at him for being stupid, because she really didn’t think he intended to stop making stupid choices anytime soon.</p><p>That night, back on the ship they had commandeered (cough cough, <em> stolen, </em>cough cough) Aang looked over at her from where he sat perched on the railing, one leg dangling over the edge of the ship. </p><p>She had been eying him nervously, trying to judge whether or not it would be worth pulling him back and giving him a safety lecture. She shook her head irritably, shoving away her baseless concern. <em> Aang is more than capable of sitting on a railing, Katara, </em>she told herself pointedly. Spirits, she was getting paranoid.</p><p>“Hey, Katara?” he said quietly, yanking her abruptly from her thoughts. </p><p>She looked up at him. The moonlight cast shadows under his eyes and across his face, and he still looked too young. He was still too pale, and he moved more carefully, stiff movements and careful positions, like he was afraid if he moved too far his injury would flare up. But then again, she had glimpsed him running on the deck with Sokka earlier, so maybe he was doing it for her.</p><p>His eyes glinted in the pale light, bright and attentive, and alive, alive, alive, and she realized she had almost been not breathing the last three weeks. He had woken up, and it had felt like oxygen returned to the air again.</p><p>“What is it, Aang?” she said.</p><p>He leaned over and yanked on her hand until she pulled herself from the deck of the ship and reluctantly joined him on the railing.</p><p>He met her eyes, his own long and searching. “Thank you,” he said quietly. “For saving me.”</p><p>Something shifted in her gut, uncomfortable and guilty. Why did she feel guilty?</p><p>He smiled at her, crooked and full of an emotion she couldn’t quite decipher. “And hey,” he said quietly, “When I defeat the Fire Lord, you can say you indirectly saved the whole world.”</p><p>Ah. There it was. If she had let him go, then… Then this wouldn’t be his burden to fix anymore. He would have been free of the war that was never his fault in the first place. </p><p>(On a completely unrelated note, Roku should be very glad he had been long dead before Katara was born. She didn’t really care if he was the Avatar, she would have challenged him to a duel and beaten his ass or died trying. She would never forgive Roku for leaving this to them, to all of them, would never forgive him for leaving this to <em> Aang </em>when he could have stopped it before it even began.)</p><p>“That’ll be pretty cool,” Aang continued, blissfully unaware of her previous train of thought. “Saying you saved the whole world.”</p><p><em> I didn’t do it for the world, </em> she thought. <em> It never even crossed my mind.  </em></p><p><em> I didn’t do it for the world at all, not even a little bit, </em> she wanted to tell him. <em> I did it for us. For me, and Sokka, and Toph. The ones who can’t live without you. I did it for me. </em></p><p>She didn’t say it. She tipped her head back and looked up at the black sky so he couldn’t see the guilt behind her eyes. “Yeah,” she said. “I guess it would.”</p><p>“You’re a hero,” he said quietly. </p><p>Katara looked away. Her stomach churned and boiled with something uneasy and bitter. What she had done wasn’t heroic. It was desperate, and full of love, yes. But it was the selfish, broken hope of a girl who couldn’t stand losing anything else. She was just a girl trying to save her family. She wasn’t a hero.</p><p>“Yeah,” she said quietly. “I guess you’re right.”</p><p>The lie tasted bitter on her tongue. But Aang would argue with her if she said she wasn’t, and she didn’t want to argue with him. Mostly, though, she didn’t want to watch his face do the crumbling into disappointment that made her feel sick to her stomach. She never wanted him to look like that. And she really didn’t want to be the reason he did.</p><p>She finally looked over at him, and his eyes were still trained on her. His face dripped with something like awe, and when she met his eyes he smiled brighter than the moon keeping vigil over them. Katara smiled back, and even though her stomach was still turning over from his statement earlier. Warmth bloomed between her ribs, filling her up like candlelight.</p><p>She shoved away the thoughts of how this felt so similar to what she had with Sokka, but at the same time, so very, very <em> not.  </em></p><p>Aang scooted closer, and the two of them leaned against each other, staring out over the sparkling waves. Thousands of shards of moonlight caught and tipped and slipped in and out of existence on the rolling surface of the whitecaps, spreading out before them until the horizon.</p><p>She took shallow breaths in and out through her nose, and measured the passing time by the steady cadence of Aang’s breathing, the smooth rise and fall of his chest, the shift of his shoulders against hers. She watched the waves, and she breathed, and she prayed. </p><p>She prayed to Tui and La. Her silent prayers echoed in the empty spaces within her differently than the last time. She was older now, and wiser. </p><p>She stared down the maw of infinity, coming to consume them all, and this time she knew they couldn’t hide. Couldn’t run, couldn’t fall away and leave the burdens too heavy for their shoulders to anyone else. No one else could hold it. No one else would. <br/>Katara watched the shards of light flicker in and out on the waves, and she prayed to Tui and La, to anything that would listen.</p><p><em> History has our names now. And they will have us, too. But please, </em> she prayed. <em> If they will have all of us, too. Give us a good ending. Even if it isn’t happy, let it be good. </em></p><p>----</p><p>Sozin’s comet arrived. </p><p>Katara has found that whether you are running to it or from it, destiny still arrives. Fate, in all her cruel finality, comes for everyone sooner or later.</p><p>In a twisted mirror of a day months earlier on a stolen ship, Aang vanished. </p><p>The dark-haired woman Zuko brought them to handed her beast Aang’s staff (he left his staff, why would he leave his staff, he never went anywhere without his staff, where had he <em> gone </em> ? He promised her. He <em> promised her. </em>) and loudly declared that Aang just didn’t exist, and Katara’s heart almost stopped. </p><p>Zuko pulled out a sweaty sandal, and Spirits, was <em> that </em>what had been stinking so badly in his pack all this time? </p><p>Katara pulled her arm down, and gave Zuko the best disgusted face she could past her fingers clamping her nose shut. <em> I’m judging you right now, </em>her expression said. </p><p>The edge of Zuko’s mouth curled up in a smile that seemed to say, <em> Fair.  </em></p><p>They followed the beast to the edge of Ba Sing Se. </p><p>Zuko went into his uncle’s tent, and came out thirty minutes later with his chin held high, and his eyes sparkling, the tear tracks on his face nothing compared to the weight she hadn’t realized lay heavy on his shoulders until it was gone. </p><p>He met her eyes, and she sidled over to squeeze his hand, smiling at him. </p><p>Katara knew what it was like to air the wounds sitting just under the skin. She knew that when they were open, and raw, and healing, it hurt like nothing else, and you flew up to join the atmosphere, soaring like you would never come down.</p><p>They sit down in a loose circle, and Iroh tells Zuko solemnly that he would be the next Fire Lord. Zuko’s jaw dropped, and Toph snorted, and Katara’s face scrunched up as she turned her head to look at Zuko, because really, how did he not see that coming?</p><p>He agrees, somewhat reluctantly, and Katara and Toph breathed a sigh of relief in near synchrony. After Katara and Zuko had become friends, she realized that under all the awkwardness, he was just a soft dork who wanted the best for his country, and his family.</p><p>The thought of someone who cared, actually cared, not just about the Fire Nation, but about the others, too, as the head of the nation after one hundred years of senseless, bloody war was… more than she could have ever hoped for as a child. Zuko was going to be a wonderful Fire Lord.</p><p>He met her eyes over the fire, and she poured all of her confidence, all of her reassurance, all of her hope into her smile. His shoulders fell, and something like hope entered his expression, and her chest lit up with fireworks because finally, finally, he trusted her, and she trusted him, and they trusted each other, and that would be enough. They would make that enough.</p><p>From the corner of her eye, Katara caught Iroh watching her, suspicion bordering in the wrinkles beneath his eyes. She couldn’t really make herself care, though, because no matter what he thought of her, Zuko could trust her now. Would always be able to trust her. And she would always be there if he needed her.</p><p>So when he turned to her, cracking with hope and crumbling with desperation, she said yes. She was going to fight with him, and they were going to fight Azula. </p><p>They finished planning, and said goodbye to Toph and Suki and Sokka. </p><p>She gave Suki and Toph each a hug that could probably have cracked their ribs, and a stern warning that if they got themselves killed, she would personally resurrect them to kill them herself. </p><p>Suki looked her in the eyes and said, “I’ll see you on the other side.” It was a promise as well as a warning.</p><p>Toph hugged her back, hard and stubborn and furious in the way Toph loved, and said in a voice raspy with words left unsaid, “Don’t do anything stupid or reckless, Sugar Queen.”</p><p>Katara laughed, hollow and bitter and tired. “Everything we do is stupid and reckless.”</p><p>Toph’s jaw trembled, and she said, “So let’s do it right.” She didn’t say, <em> we don’t get a do-over this time. </em>Katara heard it anyway.</p><p>She pulled Toph into another hug, trying to burn away the frost with her warmth. She brushed her bangs back, and pressed a hard hiss against her temple, biting back tears. “Do it right,” she said. <em> Come back, </em> her silence whispered. Toph heard.</p><p>“You too,” she said, her voice scraping with grief for those not yet gone, and love that couldn’t ever be put into words.</p><p>Katara pulled away, and squeezed Toph’s hand, giving her a smile she couldn’t see. But maybe she could feel it, because she smiled back.</p><p>Katara turned towards Sokka. Unshed tears were already glimmering in Sokka’s eyes when he pulled her into a crushing hug.</p><p>It had been like this since their mother died and their father left, and they both felt too small for the endless space they had to fill. They hugged like this, overlapping limbs, and crushing support, and mingled breaths pressed into the crook of the other’s necks This was how they lived, how they breathed, how they hugged. They had learned the hard way that life was fragile, and you only ever have as much time as you are given, and all the time you are given will never be enough. </p><p>This knowledge dripped into their actions, into their exchanges, into this. This crushing, tangled mess of limbs and breaths and beating hearts with too much to say and too little time, and a love that could never be shown in it’s true depth; where they were more one person than two, and neither of them could tell where one of them ended and the other began, and they had long since forgotten how home could be anywhere but drowning in each others warmth. They had long since stopped caring who was holding who up.</p><p>“I love you,” Sokka whispered into her ear. “With the sea and the sky, and everything in all of us.” </p><p>Katara laughed, and she sobbed, and she buried her face further into the crook of his neck, that had always felt like it was made just for her.</p><p>“I love you,” she whispered, “With the stars and the moon, and everything in between.”</p><p>He laughed, his breath hitching unevenly, and Katara felt tears drip onto her neck. And then, he started to sing.</p><p>His voice was uneven, and warbling, and his words were barely more than a whisper, rising and falling in her ear. Grief and despair and hope, crushing in its power, flooded her, a tsunami of emotion, because this song never should have been hers, never should have been theirs, but it was, it was, and they were singing, and it meant, for the first time in years, Sokka had hope. He was singing <em> Retamue Untii </em>.</p><p>“<em> When the earth meets the sky, </em></p><p>
  <em> And the stars above all </em>
</p><p><em> Flicker out,” </em>he sang quietly, his voice cracking.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “When the last flame dies, </em>
</p><p>
  <em> And the battle’s eased,  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> the wars in us all won, </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I will be home again. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “But for now, </em>
</p><p><em> Goodbye until. </em>”</p><p>Katara let out a wet, broken laugh, and continued in the low minor key.</p><p>“<em> When the sea meets the flames, </em></p><p>
  <em> And the winds all around, </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Blow restless through the bones, </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “When the snow doesn’t fall, </em>
</p><p>
  <em> And the rain from our eyes  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> runs red no more, </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I will be home again. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “But for now, </em>
</p><p><em> Goodbye until. </em>”</p><p>She sniffed, and they tilted into the last verse together, whispering the lyrics, nearly silent, crying into each other’s shoulders.</p><p>“<em> When sun meets the moon, </em></p><p>
  <em> And the darkness is home, </em>
</p><p>
  <em> And the light dances with shadows, </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “When the song of our souls, </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Is enough for the silence, </em>
</p><p><em> And the fighting has long since passed </em>,</p><p>
  <em> I will be home in your arms again, </em>
</p><p>
  <em> But for now, </em>
</p><p><em> Goodbye until. </em>”</p><p>Their voices were dissonant, and their tempos were each a little different, and they didn’t really sound good at all. But she didn’t think either of them cared.</p><p>They let the song fade into silence, still tangled up in each other.</p><p>Katara’s eyes were still closed when Sokka whispered to her, “Come back to me, <em> shaimele.” </em></p><p>Katara squeezed her eyes shut even tighter, and pulled her nose from his neck just enough so he could hear her say, “You first, <em> shaimeka </em>.”</p><p>He laughed, hollow and overflowing. “How about we just come back to each other?”</p><p>She thought about prayers, about sneers of failure, about flames and golden eyes, and blood spreading out endlessly, staining the ice it lay upon red. She thought of the weight of a friend, laying dead and lax and heavier than a thousand knives in her arms. She thought of currents, and hope; the determination in her friends’ eyes. She thought about fate, and love, and everything that came together to push all of them here, now, on the cusp of history. She stared into the black, endless maw of infinity, and history, and remembrance, and started running straight for it.</p><p>“Deal.”</p><p>They left. Katara and Zuko stood and watched the eelhounds carry away too much of their tiny broken family. They watched until they faded from sight. Katara gripped Zuko’s hand tighter and let the tears fall. Zuko gripped her hand back just as tightly, and she felt his fingers grow just a little warmer under hers.</p><p>“Do you think this will work?” he said quietly.</p><p>She took a deep breath. “I think,” she said quietly, “that all we can do is what we can. And if that isn’t enough, then nothing ever will be.”</p><p>They stood in silence, watching the empty horizon.</p><p>“Do you think it will be enough?”</p><p>She squeezed his hand, and closed her eyes. “What I think doesn’t matter, in the grand scheme of things. I’m just one person, and fate comes for all of us sooner or later.” She opened her eyes again, and turned her head to find him already watching her. “But I think about everything that led us here, all the tiny things that could have made all the difference, and… And I don’t think anything else could have happened to give us a better chance. I don’t know what is going to happen. None of us do. But I have hope.”</p><p>She smiled at him, all too aware of the tear tracks on her face, and the love in her eyes. “And we don’t have to do it alone.”</p><p>Before they left, Katara slipped away from the group and dropped down on an outcrop of rock facing towards the city. She took a deep breath, and stared out over the city. </p><p>“A beautiful view,” a voice behind her said. “May I join you?”</p><p>Katara shifted so her chest was faced more towards him, and Iroh took the invitation and sat down. They sat in silence for a while, listening to the muffled sounds of the others still racing through the camp behind them. </p><p>Honestly, Katara didn’t know much about Iroh. She knew he was the Fire Lord’s brother, and that he was, for a long time, a ruthless general under the Fire Nation who led assaults that took countless lives on both sides of the war. But Zuko had said that he told bad jokes, and loved making tea, and always gave him chances that he didn’t deserve. She knew that he loved Zuko, and that he had fought both his nephew and his niece in Ba Sing Se to give her a chance to escape with Aang. She knew she could never repay him for that.</p><p>“Are you afraid to fight Azula?” he asked. His voice was soft, but his eyes scanned her sharply. Katara didn’t know much about Iroh. But she knew he was smarter than he seemed.</p><p><em> What are you digging for? </em> She wondered.</p><p>“I don’t know,” she said carefully. She sighed, heavy and tired. “I’m not afraid to fight her. I’m…” She tipped her head back and stared at the unblinking stars. Lots of times, the stars seemed soft, loving in a distant kind of way. Now, they seemed to leer down at her, like hundreds of judging eyes.</p><p>“I’m not afraid to fight her. I’m afraid of worse things. I’m afraid of what happens if we lose.” Katara looked down, away from the leering stars. Her eyes focused on the dirt in front of her, and she swirled the tip of her forefinger through the crumbling earth. “I’m afraid of what happens if some of us win, and others of us don’t. I’m horribly, deathly afraid of the fact that no matter how this goes-” </p><p>She swallowed hard. “No matter how this goes,” she continued even softer, “some of us might not come back at all.” </p><p>Katara looked up and met Iroh’s eyes. Now, here, in the moonlight and the darkness and the silence that felt like a judge’s sentence, he didn’t look frightening, or powerful. He didn’t radiate the same quiet confidence that he had earlier, giving orders around a campfire. He looked regretful.</p><p>“It is one of my deepest shames,” he said quietly, “that I did not realize the gravity of my nation’s actions sooner. I was not always the man that I am now. I have done… truly terrible things in my life, and I have inflicted damage you cannot know.”</p><p>Katara thought of the sallow cheeks of the people of her tribe. She thought about empty space that could never be filled, and snow black with soot, and blood spreading and spreading and spreading, staining the ice it lay upon the color of death. </p><p>“I do know,” Katara said flatly. “I don’t know it from the perspective you do, but I know. Our tribe used to have thousands. Now there are forty, if you’re feeling generous.”</p><p>Iroh flinched away from her like she had struck him.</p><p>She sighed. In a softer voice she said, “It doesn’t matter right now who you were. I won’t say it doesn’t matter at all anymore, because I don’t like telling lies, and you don’t need to hear them. You hurt people. A lot of people. But everyone hurts everyone, and what matters right now isn’t who you were, or what you did, but who you are, and what you are doing. And what you are doing is a good thing.” A wry smile curved at the corner of her lips. “Even if it is a little ironic that the general famed for laying siege to Ba Sing Se is now trying to reclaim it in the name of the Fire Nation’s rival.”</p><p>Iroh looked at her, and then he laughed, tipping his head towards the sky. “You seem like a very wise young woman, Katara. And far more forgiving than any of us deserve.”</p><p>Something flipped in her stomach at his words, unease rolling through her. “I don’t know about that,” Katara said. “I’ve done some pretty stupid things.”</p><p>Iroh looked at her, his eyes growing more serious. “Everyone does, at one point or another. It does not negate the fact that only a woman who is trying very hard to see from all points of view and make herself better could have said to me what you just did.”</p><p>He looked her up and down. With a solemn voice he said, “People like you are the ones who will fix the world, even if it is only a little at a time. People like you are the ones who will atone for our mistakes.”</p><p>Slumbering embers reared to life in her stomach, frost racing through her veins. She swallowed the words that leapt to her tongue, even though it scalded her as though she was swallowing acid. <em> We don’t want to atone for your mistakes, </em> she didn’t say. <em> We didn’t make this mess, why should we have to clean it up? </em></p><p>“I know that we have done immeasurable damage to you and your people,” he said cautiously. “And it would be very understandable if you do not care much for the safety of us. We did not for you. </p><p>“But, I hope,” he said slowly, and something in Katara whispered that he was finally getting to what had driven him out here to talk to her. “I hope that any animosity you may hold towards our nation will not drive you to deny my nephew help in this fight if he requires it.”</p><p>It took a second for his words to register, and when they did, Katara’s jaw dropped. Was he really insinuating that she would let Zuko die as some twisted form of revenge? Some disgusting kind of vengeance for the wrongs the Fire Nation had done to her tribe?</p><p>Fury rushed through her, disgust rearing its ugly head deep in her chest. Sometimes, Katara felt like she was more water than human, more ocean than earth. Now, she was ice, sharp and unyielding and cold enough to burn.</p><p>She forced herself to take a deep breath, and then another. She closed her eyes and took count of her breaths. When she reached three, she opened her eyes again and began to speak, forcing herself to keep her voice civil. “When Zuko started chasing us,” she said, her voice hard and barely pleasant, “I made myself a promise. I promised myself that no firebender would ever, <em> ever </em> take my family away from me again.”</p><p>Iroh’s eyes flashed at her words, something like grief twisting behind them, and she knew he had not missed the implications of <em> again. </em>But he said nothing.</p><p>“So far, I have kept that promise.” Katara met Iroh’s eyes, and all the unforgiving rage of the ocean rushed through her words. “And I intend to continue keeping it.”</p><p>Iroh inhaled sharply, and she knew her meaning hadn’t been lost on him.</p><p>“No firebender is ever taking my family from me again,” she said, any attempt to keep her words calm long since vanished. “Nothing is happening to Zuko, not if I can help it.”</p><p>They stared at each other for a few seconds, Katara’s breathing harsh with anger, a stark comparison to Iroh’s quiet shock.</p><p>Then he reached over and gently took her hand. When he spoke, his voice was raspy with emotion. “My nephew is very lucky,” he said, “to have found such a wonderful family.”</p><p>He gave her a wry smile that cut through Katara’s shock like a hot knife through butter. “I never could protect him like I should have. May you have more luck than I did.”</p><p>Something shot through her gut, a flash of light against a midnight sky. “That’s where you went wrong then,” she said quietly. “He doesn’t need protection. He needs help.”</p><p>Iroh took a shuddering breath, and when he laughed his voice cracked with an emotion too complicated to untangle. “Then you are even better suited for the task then I am,” he said with a bitter, rueful smile that dripped with something like hope beneath all the regret. “Because I would never have been able to see that on my own, but now that you have said it, I realize my mistakes.”</p><p>He smiled at her, sad and happy and full of regret, and grief, and the bone-deep exhaustion that the war left in all of them like a gruesome monument. “Watch out for him,” he said softly. “May you have all the strength you need.”</p><p>Katara’s heart clenched at his words, and she rose, brushing off her skirts. “I will.”</p><p>In a sudden surge of recklessness, she twisted her feet so that they sat, toe to heel, and curled her arms inwards so that the back of her hands lay flat against each other. Because if they were all going to die, what the hell? What did she have to lose?</p><p>She held the pose and bowed to him so that her chin hung level with her collarbones, and said, “Thank you for your wisdom, <em> Yeune. </em> May the tides rise with you, and the moon be at your back.”</p><p>Iroh’s jaw dropped at her use of the ancient gesture of respect and deference. Katara had wondered, even as she was doing it, if he would understand the significance of the gesture and the honorific, but he clearly did.</p><p>He rose to his feet, and, eyes sparkling, placed one hand upright over his closed fist, and bowed right back to her. “May Agni smile upon you, <em> wenshaou te, </em>and may the sun rise with you.”</p><p>Warmth flooded Katara’s stomach. She didn’t fully understand the significance of the honorific, but the well wishing wasn’t hard to understand, even if she technically rose with the moon. She made a mental note to ask Zuko later what <em> wenshaou te </em>meant.</p><p>They walked back in silence, and all too soon she and Zuko were climbing onto Appa, and the Order of the White Lotus was watching solemnly as they soared away into the blackness. Somehow, it didn’t feel like an appropriate time to wave.</p><p>For the first hour or so, they did nothing but sit in tense silence, watching the blackness of the land fall away before them. One way or another, this was it. This would be it. Death was not a new concept to Katara. But suddenly this all felt too real. <em> I could die today, </em> she thought. Or, even worse, <em> someone I love could die today. Someone I love probably </em> will <em> die today. </em>It was too much. She looked over at Zuko, pale and determined, and already too scarred from this war. Whatever happened, neither of them would ever be the same. It was too much. </p><p>Suddenly desperate for something to talk about, something to do, Katara leaned over to Zuko and said, “Can I ask you something?”</p><p>Zuko jumped, letting out a muffled swear word under his breath, and then turned towards her, his eyebrows furrowed in concern. “Is everything okay?” he asked.</p><p>Katara snorted. “You mean other than everything?” she said, gesturing broadly out at the darkness. “Yes. I was just wondering if you could tell me what a word meant.” As she said that, she felt her face and neck heat up a little bit. Zuko had told both her and Sokka that they both spoke very well in his native language for having known none of it not even a year ago, but sometimes it still felt embarrassing to have to ask for translations when she just didn’t know a word.</p><p>But Zuko didn’t seem fazed. In fact, he seemed to relax at her question, like he had expected something much worse. “Of course,” he said. “Do you remember what the word was?”</p><p>Katara bit her tongue, trying to remember how Iroh had pronounced it. “I think it was something like, <em> wenshi tao </em> . <em> Wenshao tu </em>? Um…”</p><p>Zuko’s eyes widened, shock rolling across his face in waves. “<em> Wenshaou te </em>?”</p><p>“Yeah,” Katara said. “That one.”</p><p>“Katara,” he said, his golden eyes stretched as wide as they could go, his eyebrows nearly brushing his hairline. “Who called you <em> wenshaou te </em>?”</p><p>Katara drew back a little, her eyebrows furrowing in alarm. “Your uncle,” she said. Zuko’s jaw dropped even further. With how fast they were going, it was really a miracle he hadn’t swallowed a bug yet. “Why?” she said, “Is it a bad thing?” It hadn’t seemed derogatory, but she really didn’t know very much about Iroh.</p><p>“No!” Zuko exclaimed hastily. “No, Katara, that’s… <em> Wenshaou te </em> is a really weighty honorific, it’s <em> so </em> respectful. It means, like…” He stumbled over his words, like he didn’t quite know how to put it into words, it had just been something he knew.</p><p>“It’s like saying, <em> woman of great courage and strength </em>. But there are connotations to it that, mean it isn’t a word you use lightly, and using it for someone younger than you is,” he hesitated, “practically unheard of.”</p><p>He looked at her, serious and more than a little awed. Strangely, he looked almost proud of her, too. “It means,” he said, “that uncle really, really respects you.”</p><p>Katara sat for a second, digesting that in silence. “Wow,” she said quietly. “I mean, I figured it was something good from the way he said it but… That seems like a really high complement. He barely even knows me.” </p><p><em> And you barely know him, </em> a voice that sounded like Sokka whispered in her head. <em> And you called him </em> Yeune <em> . Elder isn’t a word we throw around lightly, either. </em>She told the voice to shut up.</p><p>“Well,” Zuko said quietly, a flush rising up his neck. He glanced down at his lap. “I kind of think of you that way, too.” He looked up at her again. Maybe he saw the shock on her face, because he said, “Even when we didn’t really get along, I, well. I really respected you.” A wry smile crossed his lips, and he said teasingly, “You handed me my ass too many times for me to not.”</p><p>At that, Katara laughed. She shook her head at him, and bumped his shoulder. “Sorry about that,” she said.</p><p>Zuko shrugged. “Don’t be,” he said dismissively. “I was asking for it.”</p><p>They both started laughing, and Katara moved in closer. They curled up against each other on Appa’s head, and watched the world rush by below them, because if they were both going to die that day, then by the Spirits they were going to die among family.</p><p>Agni Kai. Because of course the two firebenders were going to have a fire duel in the middle of Sozin’s comet. Of <em> course </em> that was what they were doing. (Sometimes Katara really hated Zuko’s family. Most of the time Katara really hated Zuko’s family.)</p><p>“I can’t explain it,” Zuko said to her, “but she’s slipping.”</p><p><em> No, </em> Katara thought sarcastically. <em> I hadn’t noticed.  </em></p><p>The Fire Nation princess looked, for lack of a better word, like hot turtleseal crap. There was a crazed gleam to her eyes that made Katara think of lightning and thunder and the patients in war hospitals who could no longer speak anything but the language of the mad, spilling poetry from their lips that would never make sense to anyone but them. </p><p>Azula looked as though she was finally coming undone, the abuse and the pain and the horror of who she had become, <em> what </em>she had become, finally splitting her apart seam by seam, and spilling out in all its ugly glory for the whole world to see. Katara could not even bring herself to hate her.</p><p>Zuko began to walk away to begin the Agni Kai. Katara’s arm shot out, and she grabbed his hand. He turned to look back at her, and she squeezed his fingers as tightly as she could, trying to convey all her urgency. “<em> Shaimek,” </em>she said quietly, pouring everything she didn’t have the time to say into that one word. </p><p>His eyes widened at the word and its implications, his jaw dropping a little. </p><p>“If you’re going to do this, do it. Walk in with your head held high.” Katara lowered her chin, her eyes narrowing with fear, and love, and pain, and hope. “And then walk out.”</p><p>Zuko squeezed her hand, and a smile, shattered and bruising and damning in its trust, crossed his face. He looked at them, at everyone in their little group like they were the rising sun. Like he was caught in their orbit and they were the light in his darkness. </p><p>It terrified her. She knew what you would do for that kind of love, because she would do it in a heartbeat too. For any of them.</p><p>With all the confidence of a man with everything he could ever need, he said, “I will.”</p><p>Logically, Katara had known Sozin’s comet boosted firebender’s strengths to godlike levels. Logically, she had known that they had to be capable of making a lot of fire to wipe out the whole Earth Kingdom at once.</p><p>But knowing that, and seeing it, were two very different things. Logically, she had known this would happen. But as she looked out over Caldera City, and the roaring oceans of blue and orange and yellow flames, she shook with terror, frost flooding her bones, ice-water hissing through her veins, trembling with a soul-deep fear, because <em> holy shit </em>that was a lot of fire.</p><p>Enough fire to turn lakes into steam, and burns forests and cities until there was nothing but smoke and ash and the inescapable reek of death.</p><p>And this was just two firebenders. Her blood boiled and hissed and wailed as she realized Sokka, and Toph, and Suki weren’t just fighting two. They were fighting hundreds.</p><p><em> We were doomed before we started, </em> she thought. <em> This was never going to be enough.  </em></p><p>What was the last thing she had said to her father? Had she told him she loved him? Or was it something mundane and forgettable, the kind of thing you would say a million times over without thinking, because in the grand scheme of things it really meant nothing? She didn’t know. It was almost worse than knowing.</p><p>Katara didn’t know anything about Agni Kais. But she did know something. Zuko was winning.</p><p>Zuko was winning. There were oceans of flames consuming the same capital city the two siblings fought over, and Azula was screaming with rage, and Zuko was fighting his little sister, (he was fighting his <em> little sister </em>) who had never once lost a fight with him, and he was winning.</p><p>Azula’s eyes landed on Katara, and her mouth contorted in a smile that looked like a chasm of darkness, a lifetime of pain buried below the surface, finally reaching the light, and doing it’s best to swallow it whole.</p><p>The world turned blue and white and scorchingly incandescent, and as Katara stared down the same lightning that had once ended her world with a too-small body in her arms, all she could think was, <em> It was never going to be enough.  </em></p><p>Zuko leapt in front of her. For a split second, all the world was blue, and the darkness was gone, and the crashing of thunder all around her was almost loud enough to drown out Zuko’s harrowing scream.</p><p>Then the world was dark again, and Zuko was lying motionless on the ground, and Azula was laughing.</p><p>Azula was <em> laughing. </em></p><p>Katara’s vision went red. She didn’t hear her guttural scream over the pounding of her pulse in her ears. She didn’t see the way she seemed to transform, becoming more animal than human, more fury than person. She didn’t see. But someone else did.</p><p>Azula stopped laughing.</p><p>The fight was fast and brutal. Azula summoned oceans of fire, but even the largest of flames must yield to the sea in its eternity. And Azula burned with flames, but Katara burned with all the cruel frigidity of the endless sea. And the arctic ocean is so very cold.</p><p>Water fell around them both, and Azula’s chains smacked against Katara’s hands as she scrambled away.</p><p>She didn’t remember running to Zuko. He just seemed to appear before her, smelling of ash and burnt flesh and death, and Katara wanted to retch, because she promised. Never again.</p><p>Never again.</p><p>Katara’s hands found the water on instinct. It rippled under her fingers, morphing into an eerie luminescence. She dropped her fingers, and let the tugging in her gut pull her. Her hands slid to the scorched tissue in the center of his chest, and tendrils of the water curled off, slipping inside the wound. </p><p>Zuko’s back arched and he let out a strangled moan. He wasn’t dead yet. And she was going to keep it that way.</p><p>Beneath her fingers she felt the pulse, the thrum of water, not just encasing her fingers but within his veins, and for the first time, she was insanely grateful for bloodbending. She felt out the water in his tissues, in his organs, deformed and distorted by the blast. She curled her fingers, and hooked into the scorched, ruined tissues, and she pulled.</p><p>Zuko’s mouth moved like a fish above water, but no noise came out.</p><p>Beneath his skin, his muscles and organs and tissues were shifting, shoving and pushing and pulling back into their original shape.</p><p>Katara was vaguely aware that as she pulled the ash from his veins, and the fire from his wound, she was yelling at him. Or maybe she wasn’t yelling at him, but yelling at something bigger. Less tangible. </p><p>This should never have been theirs to fix. It never should have been their job to fix the smoking, cracking ruins of a world people long dead had devastated. They were kids. It should never have been left to them to kill and die for a war they never wanted.</p><p>And Zuko was dying beneath her fingers and Azula was screaming behind her and somewhere, somewhere, the rest of her tiny, broken family was fighting a fleet of airships, staking their lives, their pasts and their futures on a desperate measure, and, Spirits, they were all just <em> kids </em>, and this wasn’t fair. But life never is.</p><p>So she was shouting, and she was pulling, and she was staving off death by barely anything. Holding back the tide with her bare hands. And she was yelling at Zuko.</p><p>“Do you hear me?” she yelled. “Don’t you dare leave me here, you selfish bastard! You aren’t allowed to die. I didn’t give you permission to die, you jerk! Of course, of course you would be the one to try and die on me right now. You never let us stop you if you could help it, and now you’re giving in to one stupid lightning bolt? No! You aren’t allowed to! I won’t let you. You can’t die now, Zuko, you- you can’t-” Her yelling was beginning to dissolve into hiccuping sobs.</p><p>“You can’t die on me now,” she whispered, the tugging in her gut still guiding her hands over the wound. “You can’t leave now, we were- we were winning, Zuko, we’re going to have forever to be stupid kids, but you- you have to come back to me now.”</p><p>Zuko didn’t answer her. His eyes flickered feverishly beneath his eyelids, and it occurred to her that if he made it, this would be a very embarrassing memory for her, yelling at her unconscious friend who swallowed a lightning bolt to save her. She didn’t care. She would take an eternity of embarrassment if it meant she didn’t leave here with another body in her arms.</p><p>“You can’t leave now,” she whispered, her voice breaking. “You and me and all of us… We were just starting to be a family. We still need you. You can’t go yet.”</p><p>Katara looked up, and for a split second she thought she saw something. A flash of gold and white, dark eyes staring at her through the darkness. <em> Lady Death is the one who comes for firebenders, </em> Zuko had told her once. <em> Sometimes, even if she is coming for someone else, you can catch a glimpse of her. She comes for all of us sooner or later. But time is flexible, and sometimes, very rarely… you can get more of it. </em></p><p>Katara stared at the empty space where she had met the woman’s eyes, and she snarled. She hooked the water deeper into Zuko’s wound, and looked back down at him. <em> You can’t have him, </em> she thought viciously. <em> And if you won’t give him more time, then I will. </em></p><p>The wound glowed against his pale flesh, phosphorescent and in stark contrast with the firelight still bathing the city.</p><p>Katara prayed to Tui and La, she prayed to Yue, she prayed to anything that was listening. <em> Not a happy ending, because nothing is ever really happy all the way.  </em></p><p>
  <em> Not a happy ending. But a good one. </em>
</p><p>The tugging eased, and she dropped her hands, and she stared at her friend with wide eyes, tears racing down her cheeks.</p><p>Zuko opened his eyes, and smiled up at her, croaking a tiny, “Thank you.” </p><p>She cried. She pulled him into a hug, and she cried on his shoulder, and he cried on hers, and it was enough.</p><p>They sat in the courtyard for hours, arms curled around each other, watching the sky and the stars and the flickering flames slowly simmering down under the watchful eye of time. </p><p>Azula’s screaming slowly devolved into senseless babbling, and after the first time they looked at her, pitiful and crumbling and ruined and helplessly spitting tongues of blue fire, they didn’t look at her again. Katara swallowed down the vomit that tried to escape, and tried not to imagine how easily this could have gone wrong. Tried not to imagine how easily Zuko could have turned out like her, how easily they all could have turned out like her, because war is cruel, and it has no place for children. And they were just children. But were they really, anymore?</p><p>They sat there for hours. Watching. Waiting. Staring up at the sky for something, anything, any sign that they weren’t alone. When Azula’s blue fire crossed their line of vision, even faced away from her as they were, Katara’s arm tightened around Zuko, and she said nothing of the tears that rolled down his cheeks. When Katara’s breathing sped up, and her breaths turned into helpless gasps as she stared at the sky, because they weren’t here, and she didn’t know what was happening, and if something happened to Sokka she wasn’t sure she would be able to do anything ever again, Zuko pulled her in, and looked her in the eyes, and recited every impossible thing they had ever done, every last chance that had somehow miraculously worked. “They will come back,” he whispered to her. “We just have to wait for them.”</p><p>They sat, and they sat, and they sat. They held each other up, and held each other down, and they sat, curled into each other, watching the sky and waiting. Waiting for all the other people they couldn’t live without.</p><p>In the weird gray area of the morning just before the dawn, when it wasn’t quite dark, and it wasn’t quite light, and everything felt like a different world, a lone airship descended from the sky.</p><p>Zuko saw it coming first, and pointed it out against the greyness, and both of them had stiffened, watching it draw closer and closer and closer. It stalled over the capital city, still smoking and flickering with orange and yellow flames. Then it started down for the main square.</p><p>“No one’s firing at us,” Katara said quietly, her wide eyes trained on the slowly descending airship. </p><p>Katara and Zuko looked at each other, understanding crossing between them. If it were Fire Nation troops, they would be firing right now, hailing down death upon the two of them in Fire Nation red and Water Tribe blue. But they weren’t. Which meant someone else had to be in command of the ship. And the only people that could have hacked an airship from the most deadly army in the world were...</p><p>“Help me up,” Zuko demanded, attempting to struggle to his feet.</p><p>Katara jumped at his sudden request, her eyes widening as the temporary shock ran off. “No,” she exclaimed, attempting to pull him back down. “I’m a healer, Zuko, not a miracle worker. Your injury is so delicate right now, getting up could put you in serious pain, or reopen something in-”</p><p>“Katara,” he cut in, meeting her eyes with all the determination he had always had. “I am getting up to meet our friends whether you help me or not.”</p><p>Katara let out a snarl of frustration, and hooked her arm around Zuko’s waist. She pulled him up slowly, and he put his shaking legs against the ground. He was clearly trying very hard to stand on his own, but Katara ended up supporting most of his weight anyway.</p><p>It took a frustratingly long time for the airship to land.</p><p>Katara and Zuko stood in the middle of the soot-smeared main square, and watched with shallow, bated breath for the airship’s doors to open. If they were wrong, Katara was going to have to fight for both of them. And if they were right… Who might walk off? Who might not?</p><p>The doors opened. </p><p>Katara registered a few things all at once. Fire Nation red. Water Tribe blue. Earth Kingdom green. And a flash of blue tattoos. </p><p>Toph leapt onto the ground, and threw one hand in front of her, her closed fist aimed at the ground. There was a blur of red and pale skin, and then earth shot up, almost completely encasing whoever it was, and Toph was barreling towards them as fast as her legs could carry her.</p><p>Katara's stomach flooded with warmth, and she gasped, disbelief and joy and terror and an overwhelming rush of ecstatic relief. It was like she had been drowning her whole life, and she had finally broken the water’s surface and tasted the air.</p><p>Toph slammed into them so hard they rocked backwards, and Katara gasped, “Careful!” fear spiking through her at the thought of Zuko’s fresh wound. But Zuko just laughed, and wrapped his free arm around her, and then Katara was laughing too, and all three of them were laughing like they never believed they would make it to this world that was suddenly, miraculously, theirs to change. Katara pulled Toph in, and crushed her between them. </p><p>After a long minute, Katara finally pulled free, and left Zuko leaning on Toph. She looked at him and said, “Will you be okay?”</p><p>Zuko smiled at her, joy and bitterness and grief for something that had never really been his overflowing. He bumped her shoulder with his palm, and the way his face melted, his smile reaching his eyes in the way it only ever did for them, told her everything she needed to know. </p><p>“Go get him,” he said.</p><p>Katara gave him one last smile, so wide she thought her face might just break in half, and then whipped around. She had barely registered the flash of blue before she was sprinting, running full tilt, every second she wasn’t there an eternity too long. Sokka saw her coming, and she fell into his already outstretched arms.</p><p>Since there had been too much space, and not enough of them to ever fill it, they had hugged like this. Overlapping limbs, and mingled breaths. A tangled mess of arms and bodies and breaths and beating hearts; a love as endless as the sea and freeing as the sky, that could never be shown in its true depth. Neither of them could tell where they ended and the other began, and they had long since forgotten how home could be anywhere but drowning in each other's warmth, and they had long since stopped caring who was holding who up, and Katara wouldn’t ever want it any other way.</p><p>“Thanks for coming back to me,” Sokka whispered in his ear.</p><p>Both of them were crying. She didn’t care.</p><p>“Don’t be stupid, Sokka,” she whispered back, a wet laugh dripping into her words. “We came back to each other.”</p><p>Katara didn’t know how long she and Sokka stood there, swaying in place to the music no one else could hear, finding home. </p><p>But finally, Sokka pulled away, wiping his cheeks, and smiling down at her like she had hidden the universe away under her skin. “Well,” he said. “I am a rather selfish person most of the time.”</p><p>Katara snorted.</p><p>“But,” he said, his eyes twinkling. “I’m not going to hog you all to myself now. You’ve got someone else here who <em> probably </em>could use a hug right now, too. Better not keep him waiting.”</p><p>Katara grinned up at her brother. She shot up and dropped a kiss on his hairline, pressing their foreheads together. And then, for the second time, she pulled away and whipped around, searching.</p><p>Aang met her eyes and he smiled, crooked and broken and tired. And then she was running, and he was running, and they met in the middle like the sky crashing into the sea.</p><p>Her arms went around his neck, and his arms went around her shoulders, and both of them crumpled to the ground. </p><p>The Avatar, the Great Bridge, the Restorer of Balance and Harbinger of Freedom, the twelve-year old airbender boy who brushed his fingers along the petals of flowers like the dewdrops on them were pieces of sunlight, threw his arms around her, buried his head in the crook of her neck, and started sobbing.</p><p>Katara squeezed her eyes shut, and pressed a kiss on the side of his head. She rubbed circles on his back, and took shuddering breaths, and she cried. She held him up. She tipped him away from the world, and surrounded him in a smaller one, between her arms and her warmth, and she tried to pour her love straight into him.</p><p>They cried as one, their bruised knees pressed together on the ground. They smelled like smoke, and blood, and death: war in every tiny crack overflowing. She didn’t try to say anything to him to make him feel better, because some things can’t be fixed with words. Some things can’t be fixed at all, and there were too many of those things he already held claim to. She didn’t try to tell him it was alright, because it wasn’t. But maybe someday it would be. And now, they were going to see that someday.</p><p>But right then, she curled around him tighter, and let himself find a little piece of home in her. It occurred to her that even though they were cracking and blueblack and still bearing fresh blood from a war they never asked for, never should have had to fix, she found a little of her home in him, too.</p><p>----</p><p>Katara stepped in a puddle and groaned.</p><p>“That’s what you get for taking your shoes off,” Sokka said sagely.</p><p>Katara pulled up her skirts and examined the bottom of her now wet foot. “Well, why don’t you try wearing heels all day sometime, Sokka,” she said saltily. “It’s not as much fun as it looks.” </p><p>She let her hand hover over her foot. As she took in a huge breath, she yanked her hand away, and the water flew off. </p><p>She frowned down at the offending puddle, and flicked her hand at it. It soared out of the way and turned to ice under the cart of a nearby street vendor.</p><p>Aang stifled a giggle as she shot the block of ice a glare. She looked over at him. “What?” she said. “It got me all gross.”</p><p>Katara glared at the puddle one last time, then reluctantly conceded that she should probably put her shoes back on. She slid into the heels with much groaning. Mai had lent them to her for the meeting, as all of Katara’s shoes had worn out soles and dirt-caked tops, faded with time. </p><p>Mai had looked at them once and in her flat voice declared, “You need different shoes. The nobles will eat you alive if you go in with those.” She had then rifled through her closet to find a pair of shoes that would fit Katara. She had finally settled on a pair of black heels that added almost three inches of height to Katara’s figure. “Trust me,” Mai had said. “You’ll want to be as tall as you can for this. It’s harder for them to look down on you when you can meet their eyes.” Which was all well and good, except that Katara had never worn heels in her life, and <em> Mai, how could you not tell me heels </em> hurt <em> this much? </em></p><p>When they finally arrived at Iroh’s tea shop, Katara darted through the door and promptly kicked off her heels on the rug. She dropped onto her bare feet with a sigh, her shoulders slumping with relief. Sokka rushed in behind her, kicked off his shoes into his own hands, and, cackling, threw them at Toph, who happened to be curled up nearby.</p><p>One shoe smacked her in the face, the other tumbling into her lap. Toph let out a cry of rage, and whipped around, lunging over the back of the armchair to tackle him.</p><p>The two of them went down in a tangle of limbs and shrieking just as Aang walked in the door. He froze, watching the mess of teenagers tussling on the ground, and then turned to Katara with wide eyes. “What happened?”</p><p>Katara snickered. “Sokka threw his shoes at her, and now he’s reaping what he sowed.”</p><p>Aang laughed, leaping out of the way as Sokka and Toph’s rolling carried them into his range. Probably smart.</p><p>His momentum shoved him straight into her, and both of them staggered. They looked at each other, and started cracking up. Katara very stubbornly didn’t think about the butterflies coming to life in her stomach.<br/>“We should move before we get pulled into this, too,” Katara said, grinning down at Aang.</p><p>Aang grinned back at her. “Remember the time they wrestled in that mud puddle?”</p><p>Katara snorted. “Mud puddle is generous. Let’s call it what it was. A chickenpig sty.”</p><p>Aang started laughing so hard he had to lean on her. Katara shook her head fondly. “They didn’t even care,” Aang wheezed.</p><p>“Even when they smelled like sewage for days.”</p><p>The bell on the door rang behind them. Both of them turned around to see Zuko and Mai walk in. Zuko stopped when he saw Sokka and Toph, still wrestling on the floor. He looked up at Katara and Aang, his face full of resigned exasperation. </p><p>Katara and Aang started laughing again at his expression. </p><p>Zuko slid his shoes off onto the floor. Mai snatched them up, and with a deadpan expression, chucked them at Sokka and Toph.</p><p>Sokka and Toph froze, glanced at the shoes, recognition dawning in their eyes, then slowly, slowly, turned towards Zuko.</p><p>Zuko barely had time to shoot Mai a horrified, betrayed look before Sokka seized his leg, and yanked him into the scrum with a deafening war cry. </p><p>Mai smirked at her boyfriend.</p><p>Katara and Aang lost it. They laughed so hard Katara actually started crying. </p><p>Mai slid off her shoes next to Katara and Aang’s, and vaulted neatly over the three others wrestling on the floor. She slipped up to Katara and said, borderline mischievously, “So. How was your first day wearing heels?”</p><p>Katara straightened and looked her dead in the eyes. “Those are not shoes,” she said flatly. “Those are torture devices from the bowels of the flaming underworld.”</p><p>Mai huffed in amusement and said, “But in a pinch, they make for a pretty good way to stab someone.”</p><p>Aang looked horrified. “You haven’t actually stabbed someone with a shoe, have you?”</p><p>The corner of Mai’s mouth quirked up just a little. She walked away without answering. <br/>Katara hadn’t been to many parties over the course of her life. In fact, in the past week she had been to more parties than in her last fourteen years. And she kind of hated them. They were stuffy and formal, and the food was all finger foods? Where was the real food? She had asked Zuko. Zuko had said there wasn’t any. He had then laughed at her expression, so it must have been truly horrified.</p><p>But the worst part was the people. Stuffy diplomats, and pompous nobles, all of them wearing haughty expressions. All of them wanted to meet the “Great Heroes” that ended the war. But when they saw how young their little group was, their eyebrows raised, and their language got less complicated, like they believed the children were somehow not smart enough to understand. Toph spent a lot of time at these parties making well placed tripping hazards that disappeared just after the person, who usually had insulted one of them in some way, tripped. On a completely unrelated note, most of the people that tripped fell into some kind of food platter. Katara secretly loved it.</p><p>Once, a nobleman (that Zuko fired about a week later) had looked down his nose at Sokka and tried to explain what the word voracious meant, because <em> children are so uneducated these days </em>. </p><p>Sokka gritted his teeth, and smiled through it, and then proceeded to talk the nobleman’s ear off about theoretical physics for the next half an hour as revenge, his explanations getting increasingly more complicated and his words becoming longer and more obscure with every passing second. </p><p>The nobleman looked lost about two minutes in, but every time he tried to escape, Sokka would put on a sugary smile and speak about how the nobleman was <em> obviously so smart, so this must all be like child’s play </em>.  Katara knew her brother, and she didn’t think the use of the words “child’s play,” were unintentional.</p><p>When the nobleman finally managed to slink away, his tail tucked between his legs and beet-red at having been humiliated by a sixteen year old, Katara and Toph were watching carefully from the other side of the room. He tripped headfirst into the nearest punch bowl. And if some of the liquid that landed in his underwear froze, well then, nobody needed to know.</p><p>So yeah, Katara had a feeling she was going to hate parties like that for the rest of her life. Which wouldn’t really be a problem if she wasn’t a war hero and a diplomat for the Southern Water Tribe, who would have to go to parties like that for the rest. Of. Her. Life.</p><p>The party at Iroh’s tea shop was nothing like that. And she loved it.</p><p>They cooked in the kitchen, mixing with their hands instead of spoons. Katara was pretty sure she and Suki were the only ones who actually got any cooking done. The rest of them got into a food fight. </p><p>Zuko crushed an egg on Aang’s head, Aang threw a bag of flour over Zuko. Toph and Mai were pelting each other with pieces of lettuce and cheese, and Sokka and Iroh were throwing cake batter at each other.</p><p>Katara and Suki met each other's eyes, and rolled them in tandem, shaking their heads fondly.</p><p>Toph spilled jambalaya on herself at dinner when she threw her arms out too far. Aang sprayed tea across half the table from his nose. Katara choked on the spicy noodles Iroh had told her to try. Sokka leaned over, swiped a fingerful straight off Toph’s dress, and popped it in his mouth, grinning. Katara and Suki groaned at the same time, and both of them shot Sokka a look of judgemental disgust. Aang and Mai started laughing so hard they tipped halfway out of their chairs and had to lean on each other so they didn’t fall over.</p><p>Katara was pretty sure if they had been in a normal restaurant, they would have been kicked out for a noise complaint. </p><p>Suki and Toph kicked off a competitive game of Pai Sho. Aang, Katara, Zuko, and Sokka got into a heated game of darts, because apparently even Katara and Aang’s level-headedness couldn’t overpower the combined disaster that was Sokka and Zuko and their compulsive need to win every game they played. </p><p>The decision to ban Mai from playing, however, was unanimous. Thirty bull’s eyes in two minutes was excessive, but really Katara thought they had done this to themselves, by inviting the girl who’s whole fighting strategy was <em> throw pointy objects with scary accuracy until the other person loses, </em> to play darts. </p><p>When Zuko loudly declared Mai was no longer allowed to play, all Mai did was throw herself down in a chair with a smirk and declare herself Referee. </p><p>When Katara finally tapped out of darts, Toph looked over at her with an evil grin, and asked if she wanted to play Pai Sho. Katara laughed and shook her head, and dropped down across from Toph, mentally preparing herself for the yelling sure to follow.</p><p>It was another few hours before the sun started setting. And then they were all standing around, criticizing Sokka’s drawing, or just judging it in silence. </p><p>Katara still wasn’t totally sure he hadn’t given her Momo’s ears. The fact that he had drawn Suki firebending wasn’t helping his case.</p><p>When Aang slipped out, Katara’s eyes followed him. She slid away from the others, who were still arguing over the picture (“At least you don’t look like a porcupine,” from Zuko. “Well, I think you all look perfect!” from Toph. Groaning.) and onto the balcony.</p><p>Say what you would about Ba Sing Se, but it really was beautiful. The houses spread out until the horizon, details fading into each other as the distance spread, in contrast to the sky, just as vast and painted with thousands of colors.</p><p>But her eyes were on something else. Someone else.</p><p>She walked up to the balcony, making sure her footsteps were loud enough to hear. They were all paranoid, but the little things helped, so anything she could do, she did.</p><p>Her hands curled on the balcony railing, the stone cool and worn under her fingertips. Aang looked up at her. She smiled at him, and warmth rushed through her chest, a rising tide. He smiled back at her, and then they were both moving. </p><p>Katara fell into the hug with everything she had. She glanced at the side of his head, and then closed her eyes. The tide rose and rose and rose, and Katara thought it might never stop rising. Because they had made it, <em> Aang </em> had made it, he had done the impossible and come back. And now she had forever with her friend, they had forever to figure out how to breathe again, how to find oxygen in the smoke-filled air. They had forever to hug and laugh and live and love, sharing the same sun, running under the same sky. She had forever to figure out how to fix everything along with all the rest of her family. She had forever. And it was a forever she would get to share with the best friend she had ever had.</p><p>They pulled away, and Katara smiled at him. The sparks that had been sitting in her stomach for so long flickered and roared to life. He smiled back at her, and all of the fire rushing up within her glowed in perfect echo behind his eyes. Old poets from all nations used to compare love and passion and devotion to flames. Now Katara understood why.</p><p>They met in the middle, and Katara poured the tide of love overflowing straight into him. Aang poured his own straight back. Stars swirled into existence in her veins, arctic lights coming to life in her bones. She curled into him, and he fell right back into her, and everything was worth it.</p><p>----</p><p>Suki found her in the garden. </p><p>The sun had sat about an hour earlier, and the moon hung a ways up in the sky. Actually, Suki didn’t find her in <em> the </em> garden, she found her in <em> a </em>garden, because the Fire Palace was excessively huge and full of ornamentation, and there were like one hundred and fifty different gardens in this wing of the palace alone, and really, who would ever need that much space? It was more than a little ridiculous in Katara’s opinion.</p><p>In the middle of this particular garden, there was a fountain that was really more of a mini-pond. The fountain arrangement was a series of rock basins, one over the other, stretching in a spiral almost ten feet in the air. The pond was full of drifting water lilies and lily pads, and there were always turtleducks floating through the water. Drooping willows had hooked their roots around the edge of the pond, and eight fluted pillars soared up out of the water in a circle, each of them about a foot away from the edge of the pond. The top of the pillars were flat, and if you could get to the top, you could see the whole pond. </p><p>Best of all, the garden this fountain was in was out of the way and fairly small as far as Fire Palace gardens went, so most of the time, Katara had the whole place to herself. It was Katara’s favorite garden in the whole palace.</p><p>Katara had slipped away from the latest meeting disguised as a party, her throat too tight, her heart pounding, and vanished into the endless maze that was the Fire Nation Palace.</p><p>One of the diplomats had offhandedly mentioned how it must have been so hard to tend to lightning wounds, and wasn’t she such a <em> hero </em> , the little waterbender girl who ran away from home to <em> change </em> things. </p><p>He had said “girl” like his kind would say “feces”, dripping with disgust, and when he had talked about her wanting to “change things” his voice had turned condescending, like he was saying, <em> Aren’t you so cute? The little girl trying to play with the big boys, doesn’t she think she’s so smart? </em></p><p>He had looked at her, not quite sneering down his nose at her but close enough, and he had said, “What was it like, Miss, Katara to tend to a lightning wound? I’m rather curious. I’ve heard they can be rather… messy.” He had looked at her in the way they all looked at her, something glittering dangerous in his eyes, some barely veiled mix of disgust and condescension and resentment and envy. Always envy.</p><p>Katara couldn’t care. She was too occupied with the memories rearing their ugly heads, possessing her with their power. Too blindsided by  the sudden flash turning her world incandescent and the rush of Zuko’s faltering pulse dropping away under her fingers, and the ghost of a boy’s corpse in her arms, skin hot and open wound scorching against her skin, too late, too late, and they were dying in her arms <em> again </em> and she couldn’t help because this wasn’t real. It wasn’t real. So why was her heart still beating with the same terror she had felt as they lay dead or dying against her? Why was she still shaking?</p><p>Then Zuko had appeared out of nowhere, Toph trailing him. Zuko had snarled, “What exactly are you hoping to learn?” He was practically glowing with fury, and smoke was leaking from the corners of his lips pressed thin. </p><p>“Nothing,” Toph had sneered, her face set in a barracuda smile.  you just want to dredge up pain.”</p><p>The nobleman had shrunk away before them, stuttering weak excuses, and while they were all occupied, Katara had turned around and slipped out of the ballroom.</p><p>She had run to the garden as fast as her trembling legs could carry her, and swept the water up from the pond in a smooth arc of her arm. The water turned to ice beneath her feet, pushing her up, and she slid to the top as if gravity held no claim on her. She dropped onto the nearest pillar, and her ice slide melted, the water crashing gracelessly back into the pond, sloshing and splashing and startling the nearest turtleducks. She didn’t care.</p><p>Katara didn’t know how long she sat there trying to regain control of her mind. She stared up at the sky, unseeing, and clenched her hands into fists. They were fine. Zuko and Aang were fine. They were <em> fine </em> . All of them were <em> fine, </em> all of them, all of her friends had made it, they did it, they were <em> fine </em>. </p><p>She blinked, focusing on the moon, the ghosts of people not yet dead finally fading, falling away from her. She took in a shuddering breath, her hands opening and closing, her attention on the flex and relax of the muscles there, constant as the ebb and flow of the tides. </p><p><em> When does this get easier? </em> She thought despairingly. <em> When will I be able to sit through a thunderstorm without thinking about everything I almost lost? When will these memories stop eating me alive?  </em></p><p>A tiny voice in her head whispered, <em> What if they never do? </em></p><p>Katara shoved her thoughts away. She stared up at the stars, twinkling like so many jewels hanging beyond the atmosphere. She clenched and unclenched her fingers, matching it to the pulse of her heartbeat. She breathed.</p><p>Forever was a long time, she thought. And if war was all she had ever known, then what was left of her now? What was left of the world, with nothing and too much left to fight for at the same time?</p><p>There was supposed to be an end. A clear-cut finish line she could cross and say, <em> I’m done. </em>But she couldn’t. There wasn’t a finish line, just a marker for a new kind of war. A war for a better future. But still a war.</p><p>When all she had ever known was the South Pole, when the snow and the ice and the ocean and the endless, endless sky had been all she had ever known, she had thought she wouldn’t get to see the end of the war, or that if she would, it would mean the Water Tribes and Earth Kingdom had lost. Now she thinks she may never see the ending of this new war, of politicians and diplomats and a never ending fight to right wrongs they didn’t commit.</p><p>Most of the time, Katara didn’t think about the fact that they were just kids. Most of the time, it didn’t even cross her mind, the true depth of the awfulness of their lives, because that was how everyone had lived, since the start of the war. They were soldiers first, children second. But it was times like these, when noblemen and diplomats sneered down their noses at her and her friends, envy and resentment in equal,  she realized they were twice or three times her age, and they had made no real difference to the war in their whole lives. And she and friends were soldiers and fighters and warriors of near unrivaled skill. But, Spirits Above, they were just kids. </p><p>Tui and La save them, they were just <em> children </em> . Children with scars and trauma from battles they never should have been a part of. Kids with brilliant minds and a tested strength in their bruised, cracked souls, and they had ended a war that had raged for one hundred years, and Katara wanted to scream at the uncaring universe until it gave her an answer to her biggest question. Why. Why them? Yes, they were talented. Yes, they could do it. But why, why did it have to be <em> them </em>? They were just kids.</p><p>Katara stared at the stars, traced the constellations with her gaze, ran galaxies under her eyesight, and she asked her question in her head, over and over and over. </p><p>
  <em> Why?  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Why us?  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Why couldn’t it be someone else?  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> This wasn’t our fault. Why do we have the scars from fixing it?  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> We’re just kids.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Why us? </em>
</p><p>She stared up at the stars, at the vast unblinking sky, and she screamed in the depths of her mind. She asked. But the universe is too often indifferent to those it creates. Nothing answered her.</p><p>She was still staring at the stars and the slowly rising moon when Suki began picking her way through the pond towards her.</p><p>This was Katara’s favorite garden. And her friends knew it. Which was why Suki was currently picking her way through the water lilies drifting serenely over the pond’s surface.</p><p>Idly, Katara wondered if her friends had had the kind of tiny, impromptu meeting they were prone to as of late. The kind of meeting where they huddled in a tiny group, and played what Toph had dubbed, <em> Guess That Trauma.  </em></p><p>Everyone but the person who had left gathered in a little huddle, and they tried to answer three questions. What, when, and who. What bad memory(s) got triggered? When did they get triggered? And, perhaps most important, who can we send after them that will bring up the least number of  horrible flashbacks?</p><p>It was important. But Katara really hated playing <em> Guess That Trauma. </em></p><p>Evidently, they had decided Suki was the winner of <em> who </em>. Which was probably smart.</p><p>Katara had used an ice slide to get to the top of the ten foot pillar she sat perched on. Suki just tipped her head at the spiraling rock fountain for a second, and then vaulted her way to the top, leaping from the topmost rock onto Katara’s pillar.</p><p>Suki looked down at her and raised one painted eyebrow. “Mind if I join you?”</p><p>“I think you already have,” Katara said. But she moved over anyway, making room for Suki to sit down.</p><p>Suki tucked her green skirts up underneath her, and sat down, then twisted her head to look at the sky. “Quite a view,” she said.</p><p>It echoed of another time someone had said something like that to her.</p><p>Katara fixed her eyes back on the stars. They glittered down at her, distant and cold in the wake of her unanswered query, uncaring and unseeing. It made her a little sick. “Yeah,” she said. “It is.”</p><p>Silence fell over the pillar. The only sounds were the faint quacks of the turtleducks, and the ever-present burbling of the fountain below them.</p><p>“What was it?” Suki said quietly, without shifting her gaze from the stars. “What did you see?”</p><p>Katara looked down at her lap. She swallowed. She hadn’t seen. She had<em> felt </em>. And that was almost worse. Any of them could mention a place, and the others would know what battle it was, if they had been there. But these memories, these ghosts that kept haunting her, were not of sight at all, but gut knowledge. </p><p>How do you explain the sensation of death beneath your fingers? How do you put into words the mental litany of <em> your fault, too late, you could have saved them, your fault </em> ? How do you explain the lasting weight of a corpse of someone you loved, the impression they leave on your heart and in your arms? How do you explain the true horror of <em> almost? </em></p><p>She couldn’t. She shook her head, and settled for what she had actually seen at the time the memories came knocking.</p><p>“The colors,” she murmured. “The colors are too bright. There’s red and orange and gold, and all of them are excessively gaudy, and they all blur together, and all of them are so bright they’re scorching.”</p><p>Suki barked a laugh, like that wasn’t what she was expecting. But a hint of sadness lay beneath the surprise, like she knew that Katara hadn’t really been freaking out just because the colors were too much.</p><p>“You don’t like colors at all?” she teased. “The Water Tribe in you is coming out.” Suki shook her head, clucking her tongue in mock disappointment. “Katara, Great Hero of the war, doesn’t like any real colors at all.”</p><p>It was a joke, but Katara still flared a little bit with insult. She thought about the way the arctic sunrises and sunsets painted the snow pink and yellow and purple, and the glaciers gold and orange in a faded, transparent way like glass made of gemstones. She thought about the moon’s scattered reflections off the waves at night, about the thousands of different shades of blue and white and purple in the thin light.</p><p>“Blue is a real color,” she said defensively. “White is a real color. <em> That- </em>” she said, pointing at an aggressively red and gold banner hanging over the nearest door, “-is an eyesore.”</p><p>Suki looked at the banner and winced. “Allright,” she said. “You may have a point about that one.”</p><p>Katara deflated, Suki’s earlier words swimming in her head, mixing with the words of others. </p><p>
  <em> Great Hero of the war.  </em>
</p><p><em> Aren’t you such a </em> hero <em> .  </em></p><p>
  <em> Look at the little hero.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> You’re a hero, Katara. You know that, right? </em>
</p><p>Suki saw the change, caught it with her too sharp eyes. “What?” she said. “What is it?”</p><p>Katara curled up into a ball, shifting away from Suki, fixing her eyes on her hands looped around her legs. “It’s nothing,” she muttered. “It’s stupid.”</p><p>Suki brushed her gloved fingers gently along Katara’s arm. “In the words of a very wise young monk we know, usually said to a very stupid Fire Lord we also know, ‘If it’s bothering you, it isn’t stupid.’”</p><p>Damn Suki and Aang and their stupid good logic.</p><p>Katara shifted, unfolding her legs and letting them dangle over the edge of the pillar. She looked down at her lap and sighed.</p><p>“I know that I’ve done some good things. Maybe they were even heroic, but… I was just trying to protect my family, and make it through to the other end. It just so happened that I helped end a war while doing it. And now everyone keeps telling me I’m a hero.” </p><p>She looked over at Suki. Did she look as broken as she felt? Had the fissures that criss-crossed her soul like spiderwebs finally made it through to the surface for the whole world to see? </p><p>“I don’t feel like a hero,” she whispered. “I just feel like I’m covered in cracks that won’t leave.”</p><p>Suki’s face fell, like it always did when she knew she couldn’t help them. Sometimes, Suki’s walls fell just enough for Katara to see her own cracks. Both of them had shouldered the weight of a war too young, and they had the souvenirs to show for it. They were both just as broken as the other. And both of them were trying, with everything in them, to never let it show.</p><p>Under the moonlight, Suki’s makeup made her look like a ghost, all pale skin and open wounds that never bled. It was eerie. And, Katara thought, not entirely inaccurate.</p><p>Both of them tried so hard to be there for all the others all the time, to help shoulder their weights, too. Neither of them had time to bleed.</p><p>“You don’t think you’re a hero?”</p><p>Katara wanted to look away, to not see the exhausted kind of sadness in Suki’s dark eyes. The kind of sadness that was so horribly familiar to her. She didn’t look away.</p><p>“No,” she said. “I mean, I know that I helped end the war, and I did heroic things.” </p><p>Oceans of fire, and incandescent flashes of light shredding her world down to a primal urge to protect, and a twisted, ruined girl screaming tongues of blue flame, howling at a world that would never answer her. </p><p>“But, I don’t think I’m a hero.” </p><p>Now, Katara looked away, images of too many fights burning behind her corneas, a weight heavier than all the earth in her arms. “I’m not a hero. I can’t be. I’m just a girl from the Southern Water Tribe.”</p><p>For the span of three heartbeats, Suki said nothing. And then she said, “Wow. And here I was, almost thinking you would have a smart point somewhere in there.”</p><p>Katara’s head snapped up, and she stared at Suki incredulously.</p><p>Suki raised her painted eyebrows and stared right back.</p><p>“Katara,” she said, gentle and firm at the same time. “You are not just some girl from the Southern Water Tribe anymore. You are a healer, and a fighter, and a representative for the negotiations that are ending a <em> war </em>.”</p><p>Suki reached out and tipped up Katara’s chin with one finger. She smiled, and it was sad and brave and proud all at the same time. </p><p>“None of this, <em> none of this, </em> would have been possible if you had been like everyone else. If you had shut up and accepted Sokka’s sexism, Aang never would have come out of that iceberg. If you hadn’t stood up to Pakku and learned from a master, Sokka and Aang would never have made it long enough to meet Toph. If you hadn’t saved Aang, if you hadn’t fought Azula, if you hadn’t done everything you did, none of <em> this- </em>” she said, gesturing around at the palace, “would have been possible.</p><p>“We would have been doomed. The Fire Nation would have won the war, and taken control of everything. But <em> you </em> said enough is enough, and you dusted yourself off every time you fell down, and you picked yourself back up and pulled all of us up with you.</p><p>“You led with your brilliant brain, and your massive heart, and somehow, you managed to keep all of us together. You <em> were </em>our heart, Katara, and as much crap as Toph gives you about your so-called ‘overdramatic hope speeches’ they would have crumbled without you there to give them that. We would have fallen apart, and we would have lost.”</p><p>Katara was vaguely aware that her mouth was hanging open, her jaw somewhere down by her collarbone. If Sokka were here, he would joke about how she would catch flies.</p><p>Suki smiled at her again, and her eyes were heavy with importance. “You are a girl from the Southern Water Tribe. And a healer, and a fighter, and a master waterbender, and a representative who always calls others on their bullshit in meetings. You grew up in a war, and you still have one of the biggest hearts of anyone I know. </p><p>“You are a girl from the Southern Water Tribe. And you are one of the bravest people I have ever had the privilege of knowing. I am so insanely proud to call you my family.</p><p>“I know you don’t think you’re a hero. And that’s… not what I think any of us would prefer, but you don’t have to think that now. Maybe you never will. </p><p>“But I want you to know, Katara, that even if you aren’t your own hero, or the world’s,” Suki said, cupping her hand around Katara’s cheek and smiling like a thousand burning suns, “ you’re ours.”</p><p>Katara stared at her with wide, glassy eyes as the words echoed in her head. <em> You’re ours. </em>It rung truer than anything anyone else had told her.</p><p>The tides within her rose, and fell, and rose again. They kept rising. The water in the fountain below them burbled. The stars above them watched, silent as ever, but their gaze no longer felt so cold. They couldn’t, with the love for the family she had found, and made, and fixed, burning within her.</p><p>Katara fell into Suki’s arms. They curled around each other, and even though Katara was the one being held, she felt as if she was also holding Suki. That was just how the two of them were. How the world had made them, through necessity and habit and distrustful hope. They couldn’t ever fully be held, without holding the other person up a little, too. </p><p>Maybe someday, when things weren’t so messy, and they didn’t feel so much like they were all still at war, that would change. Maybe someday, they would be able to be held, fully and truly, without holding the other person at all, and it wouldn’t feel so much like betrayal or guilt. But for now, Katara didn’t think this wasn’t a bad way to be.</p><p>Katara thought about Suki’s words, and about a prayer she made months before in the darkness and the wind, as hellfire in the form of a comet bore closer with every second.</p><p>She let herself be held, and she let herself hold, and she thought about tides, and flames, and hope, and love, and a forever spreading out before them to become something new.</p><p>She made it. They made it. The war was over, and she and her family were standing on the other side.</p><p>Maybe she wasn’t a hero. Maybe she was, and she just couldn’t believe it yet. She supposed it didn’t really matter, because her family loved her and she loved them, and they had all of forever to keep living. All of forever to keep loving each other.</p><p>She thinks about spirits, and fate, and stories of heroes and endings and happily ever afters. She stares up at the stars with Suki, two girls more warrior than child, more survivor than human. She smiles, and it comes out bittersweet, because they have war inside them too, and it probably won’t ever go away fully. Some scars never fully go away. But with time they do heal. They fade. And they have forever, now. No clear-cut finish line; a marathon still to run before them. But they were running together. And that was enough.</p><p>Wind blew through the courtyard, and it tugged at her clothes and tossed her hair, and turned the tear streaks on her cheeks cold.</p><p>Katara tipped her head towards the stars, and closed her eyes, and smiled. <em> Not a happy ending, </em> she thought, <em> because I’m not sure there really are endings that are happy all the way through. </em></p><p><em> Not a happy ending, </em> she thought. <em> But a good one. </em></p><p>----</p><p>Three months and eleven days after the end of the war, Toph went back to her parents. Four months and eight days after the end of the war, Toph came home.</p><p>On the way there, before they knew Toph would be coming back with them, but after they had decided they would offer, Katara and Aang had looked at each other. Katara knew the worry that pulsed in Aang’s veins, because she knew the worry that ran through her own. Toph had not sent them one letter, and she had mentioned before she left that the gardener would be willing to write for her. But Toph had been silent. Toph was never silent.</p><p>Aang reached over and took her hand. “I’m sure she’ll be alright.”</p><p>He didn’t say she was alright. He said she would be. That felt important. It felt like it was burying and exposing at the same time the sinking truth that Toph, silent as she was, was not okay.</p><p>She wasn’t. </p><p>When they landed, Katara and Aang ran over to the girl, and she looked up at them with tear-filled eyes, and a broken smile, and she just looked so small.</p><p>They didn’t ask questions. They held her between them, breathing and being all at once together. Katara didn’t think it would ever stop feeling like a little bit of a miracle.</p><p>Toph went home with them. </p><p>She wasn’t okay. But none of them really were. And <em> that </em>was okay. Some scars never go away. But they heal, and they fade. They all would be okay, eventually.</p><p>It wasn’t a happy ending, because by now Katara thought there really was no such thing. It wasn’t a happy ending. But it was an ending, and also a start, or a million starts all in one, and Katara thought that maybe that was better than any happy ending they could have been given, because it wasn’t given at all. It was made.</p><p>And that was a miracle of its own.</p><p>----</p><p>Toph had been back with them for almost a month, and it was like she had never left.</p><p>Their little family was back to living between the new starts they were making. </p><p>Toph had taken to planting flowers with the gardeners after she accidentally destroyed her latest flowerbed. Aang was making friends with every staff member he talked to. The staff was trying fruitlessly to get Zuko to stop climbing vertical walls to get to the roof every time he wanted to ditch his guards. Suki had started up a friendly competition between the Kyoshi warriors and the Fire Nation guards that had turned into an all out war of who could paint the most ridiculous things on the other’s backs before they noticed. Zuko had to ban the game for a week after a hallway got flooded with paint the Kyoshi warriors had stuffed in a closet. Sokka was mercilessly making fun of all the stuffy noblemen in every meeting. Zuko had given him his official permission to roast them if they got too high and mighty, and Sokka was taking far too much pleasure from that task.</p><p>And Katara was… doing whatever she needed to. Whether it be cleaning up paint spills, or keeping meetings relatively civil, or making her friends <em> go to sleep, for spirit’s sake, it’s been three days! </em>(She was a bit of a hypocrite on this front though. She couldn’t remember the last time she had a good night's sleep more than two days in a row.) </p><p>But she was also just living. </p><p>She had realized something one night when Sokka burst into her room, his eyes blown wide with terror from dreams that were never real, outcomes of their fights full of blood and death that never fell into existence. </p><p>As Sokka had curled up against her, falling asleep in the same way they used to just after their mother died, it had occurred to Katara that she never honestly believed she would make it this far.</p><p>She never thought the war would come and go without claiming the life of her brother, or her father, or her friends. She never thought she would live to see this. It was jarring, and awful in its casual cruelty. That she would be so deadened and acutely aware of the world’s horrors that from the time she was old enough to understand them, on some level she had truly believed that she would not be there to see the end when it arrived. </p><p>But she had. They had ended the war. Her brilliant, bleeding family had fought tooth and nail, had clawed and scraped and run in tilting, staggered bursts, and they had done it. They had ended the war that had raged for one hundred years with strength and talent and sheer force of will from how heavily they loved. </p><p>It was a miracle, and some days it left Katara gasping for air that didn’t want to come, because they never should have made it this far, but they did, they <em> did </em> . They were soldiers and warriors and fighters and <em> children </em> , and they had looked at the world, broken and ruined and crumbling in every way imaginable, and they had said, <em> We deserve more than this </em> , and gone out and made their own <em> more than this </em>.</p><p>They never should have been soldiers in a war not of their making. But they were. So they had fought with everything they could give, and everything they could not, and it had been enough. They were making their own world. A better world. And they were building it up straight from the ashes of the old. Their children would grow up breathing smoke from fights they had never seen, but they would never know the flames that left it there. And that would be enough.</p><p>Katara had spent her whole life surviving. Now she got to live.</p><p>Zuko had given Katara a room with a balcony. It overlooked a huge pond. </p><p>When Katara had first seen the pond, it had echoed of sleeping in tents near rivers and lakes, and on rocky outcroppings, so she and Toph had bendables. Just in case. Katara had looked at Zuko and raised an eyebrow, and he had shrugged unrepentantly. <em> Just in case, </em> his expression whispered. <em> Just in case.  </em></p><p>But regardless of why he had given her the room with the balcony over the pond that was really more of a mini-lake, Katara loved it.</p><p>That was where Sokka found her, curled up on the railing of her balcony, watching the turtleducks swim slowly through the pond, listening to the soft lapping of the water and the wind through the reeds.</p><p>He slipped out onto her balcony, and before she even looked at him, Katara knew it was her brother. Knew him by the way his feet hit the ground, knew him by the pulsation of his breathing, knew him by the way he hesitated for just a second in the doorway, their silent invitation between each other to say “go away” before the person ever entered the room.</p><p>She would know her brother anywhere. He was too much of her for her to not.</p><p>She didn’t tell him to leave, so he slid through the doorway and pushed himself up on the railing next to her.</p><p>“Fancy seeing you here,” he said, grinning.</p><p>Katara shot him an amused glance. “It’s my room.”</p><p>He laughed. “Yeah,” he said. “I guess it is.”</p><p>Sometimes it still hit both of them like a falling snowdrift, that they were friends with the actual Fire Lord. They had rooms in the Fire Nation palace. It always felt a little like a particularly strange dream that they would wake up from at any moment.</p><p>“Hey,” Sokka said, interrupting the silence. “A letter came today.”</p><p>Katara looked over at him, her nose wrinkling. Lava spurted up in her chest. “Another one from Toph’s parents?” she asked, disgust dripping from her voice. “Won’t they just give it up already?”</p><p>Sokka’s face darkened. “Well,” he said, “I totally agree with you that they should just shut up already. But actually, it wasn’t from them for once.”</p><p>Katara frowned, confusion overtaking her anger. “Who was it from, then?”</p><p>Sokka hesitated, his chest rising and falling, an uncharacteristic uncertainty flashing behind his eyes. “It was from a little town in the northern Earth Kingdom.” He smiled at her, and it looked like a wound, bruised and bleeding hope and terror all over him. “It was from Dad.”</p><p>Katara shot up, spikes of electricity shooting up her spine. Now she understood why Sokka looked almost afraid.</p><p>“What did he-” She stumbled, rephrasing. “Why was he writing?”</p><p>Sokka exhaled heavily through his mouth, and dropped his gaze to her lap, scooping up her hand to play with her fingers. “He wants to come here, to the Fire Nation, to see us. He should be here for the negotiations, anyway, since he’s technically the chief. But he said he wants to come to see us, if we’ll let him.”</p><p>Sokka wrapped his thumb around her index finger, and then unwrapped it again. “He- he wanted to know if it was okay with us. Him coming. He thought- he thought we might not want to see him.”</p><p>Katara stayed silent as he spoke. She thought of the deck of a Fire Nation ship, her nasty words from a festering wound as deep as Hakoda’s absence from their lives hanging between them. </p><p>“Do you want to see him?” she asked quietly.</p><p>Sokka took another shuddering breath. “Maybe,” he said. “Yes. I don’t know.”</p><p>He looked up at her, through his loose strands of hair. Sokka had spent so much of his life trying to look big. Maybe that was why it was so strange, in a bitterly hopeful way, to see him let himself look small. Katara was reminded of a hug on a stolen ship, where she let herself feel small. </p><p>This was the cruelty of their relationship with their father. He had left shoes too big to fill for their tiny feet. He had left enough empty space to drown in, and drown in it they had. He had left oceans of space, and they were so small then. So they had made themselves bigger. To fill the space, to banish the emptiness that had found its home in their house, in their lungs, in their bones that were always too small. Too small to hold their grief, too small to hold their joy and their pain, too small to fill the space left behind. Sokka and Katara had learned how to be big in the space their father had left behind. And now they didn’t know how to be big anymore when he was around. </p><p>Hakoda was trying to fit back into the space he left behind. But it wasn’t there anymore. It had shrunk a little more every day he was gone, every day Katara and Sokka had to be all the parts of a family at once, and now he didn’t fit, and it was hurting all of them. </p><p>It was unfair. Unfair that they had had to grow in Hakoda’s empty space, unfair that Hakoda didn’t fit in them anymore, unfair that the children they had fought with and loved with and lived with had become more family than Hakoda was anymore, a bitter truth that Katara had ignored until she couldn’t anymore. </p><p>It was unfair that Hakoda didn’t know who they were anymore. And Katara had realized that particular hurt on the stolen Fire Nation ship when Hakoda had offered Sokka a type of soup with the red mushrooms he hated in it, and Sokka had taken it anyway, and Toph had leaned over to snatch the bowl right out of his hands and said to Hakoda bluntly, “No. Give him something he actually likes. I’ll eat this one.” Hakoda truly hadn’t known, but Toph had. And Hakoda didn’t know other things he should have known, <em> would </em> have known if he hadn’t left. Toph knew. Toph knew every time. It ached, because they loved him, and he loved them, but he didn’t <em> know </em>them. Not anymore. And he hadn’t for a long time.</p><p>“I just,” Sokka said slowly. “I just don’t know how I feel. Normally I just know how I feel about something. And if I don’t, I logic my way out of it. But this time… this time I just, I know the logic, I understand that I should want him to come, but…”</p><p>“But you don’t,” Katara finished.</p><p>Sokka sighed, slumping towards her. “Yes. And no. It’s complicated and… and I don’t think I can logic my way out of this one.” He looked up at her, his blue-gray eyes breaking. “I was hoping you could help me,” he admitted. “I do logic. Logic makes sense. But this is messy, and I can’t make any sense out of it. But you find meaning in the messy things. You know how to sort through this stuff, and, well. I was hoping you could do your thing and tell me why I feel so screwed up about something that should just make sense.”</p><p>Katara looked at him, and sighed. An ache flared up in her chest, and she swung around on the railing to face him completely. “You’re right,” she said. “This is messy. And that’s how you know it’s important. Things that feel messy inside are often the things that matter to us most. That’s why they’re all messy. We try and we try and we try to find the right answer, but,” she took Sokka’s hand, rubbing her thumb over the inside of his wrist, pulse on pulse. “Honestly, Sokka? If it’s messy, if it’s important, if it twists you up and tears you down and nothing feels like a right answer at all? I think that’s usually because there is no right answer, just different ones.</p><p>“And I know you hate that. I know you want feelings to make sense. You want to be able to fall back on logic and look for the one true answer, the solution to the math equation, or the pull of the currents, or the way the wind flows. But feelings don’t make sense so much of the time. And whether or not we <em> should </em> feel the things we do doesn’t change the fact that we <em> do </em>.”</p><p>Sokka had watched her the whole time. He looked dismayed, and resigned, and a little impressed. He sighed. “Dammit,” he muttered. “Screw you and your infuriating wisdom.”</p><p>Katara laughed a little at that.</p><p>“Sokka?” she said hesitantly.</p><p>He looked up at her and raised an eyebrow.</p><p>Before she could fall too much into doubting what she was about to do, Katara took a deep breath and said, “Whatever you’re feeling, Sokka, all the messy, screwed up things you feel like you shouldn’t feel but do? They’re okay. You’re allowed to feel messy, and broken, and screwed up. Spirits know I do, way too much of the time.”</p><p>She shifted, suddenly desperate for him to hear her next words, to actually listen to them. “Sokka,” she said softly. “It’s okay if you’re mad. You can be mad at him.”</p><p>Sokka looked up at her, pulling away a little. “Why would I be mad?” he said, a little angrily.</p><p>“Because he left. We had just lost Mom, and we were drowning, and he left us.”</p><p>Sokka looked torn. Between defending his father and admitting the roaring within his chest. “But he had to go,” Sokka said, but his defense felt weak, somehow. “He had to help.”<br/>“Sokka,” Katara said quietly. “I know that. I know he had to. He had to go then for the same reason we did when we left home. But… But it doesn’t change anything. He left us behind. He left us to drown in his wake, and we didn’t just lose one parent when Mom died. We lost two.</p><p>“I know he had to go. But he still hurt us, and we moved on, and we grew up without him, Sokka. He doesn't know us anymore. That’s not to say he can’t learn who we are again, or that we shouldn’t give him a second chance, but he left us. He just left. </p><p>“And I love him. I do. But I am so, so mad at him. And it’s okay if you are, too.”</p><p>Sokka’s face crumbled. “I am,” he whispered. “I’m mad. And I’m sad. And I feel broken.” His hands closed tighter around her wrist. “I’m tired of feeling broken.”</p><p>“Me too,” Katara said quietly.</p><p>“But-” Sokka stumbled. He opened and closed his mouth several times, his brain firing and misfiring and trying again and again to do justice to the roaring in his chest. “But I still want him to be family. Or I want to try, at least. I want him to know who we are now. I want him in my life. And I think,” he said, glancing up at her, “that you do, too.”</p><p>Katara’s chest crashed and howled, and the illusion of empty space danced around her. </p><p>“I do.”</p><p>Sokka nodded. He tugged her in, and leaned against her shoulder. “Thank you,” he said quietly. “For helping me with my messy.”</p><p>Katara laughed. “Any time.”</p><p>Later, the two of them would sit down and write a letter. They would send it off to a little Earth Kingdom Town, and three months after they sent it, the two of them would go racing after each other through the halls, pushing and shoving and laughing, and they would crash straight into Hakoda as he walked in the front doors, all three of them falling to the floor. They would start healing. They would learn how to be a real family again.</p><p>Katara tipped her head onto Sokka’s shoulder, and he tipped his head onto her head, and Katara looked out over the pond, thinking about the day after their father left.</p><p>
  <em> Sokka found her at the top of a glacier. He arrived at the top huffing and puffing and grumbling about, “Had to pick the glacier with the worst path to the top”. He dropped down next to her, and looked out over the ocean and the setting sun. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Nice spot,” he said softly. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Katara had just nodded. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> The two of them had sat together and watched the sun set. The moon came up, and it filled her bones with singing, waking her up like the sun never did. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> She looked over, and saw Sokka watching her. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “What?” she asked. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Sokka shook his head. “Nothing,” he said. “You know I love you, right?” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Katara had started and said, “Of course I do.” The empty space bore down, like it always did, as they waited out of habit for one of their parents to say something gross and gooey. The empty space seemed to laugh, harsh and cold. Desperate to be rid of the silence, Katara had forced a laugh, and said, “But I love you more.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Sokka seemed to take personal offense at this, puffing up his chest and giving her a huge sniff. The skin around his eyes only looked a little too tight. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “No way,” he declared loudly. “I love you the most.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Katara grinned, a little more real this time. “No you can’t,” she said dismissively. “I love you with all the best fish on the nights Gran-Gran cooks.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Sokka, if possible, inflated even more. “Oh yeah?” he said. “Well I love you with all the snow leopard-caribou packs that run through the tundra.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Katara grinned, full this time, and real all the way. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> The contest devolved. The things they declared loving each other with got bigger, and, frequently, more ridiculous. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Sokka proclaimed he loved her with every three-eyed fish in the sea. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Katara said she loved him with every penguin that had fallen on its own head. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> It continued. After about ten minutes of this, they were sprawled out on the ice together, staring up at the stars and laughing so hard they could barely breathe. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Sokka let out a wheeze, and rolled over to face her. “Alright,” he declared, still breathless from laughing. “I’ve got the trump card.” </em>
</p><p><em>Katara wiped her watering eyes, and said, “Whatever you say, it can’t be better than ‘every sunset with clouds that look like penguin poop.’</em> <em>”</em></p><p>
  <em> Sokka took her hand, and cupped it between his own, and for the first time, his voice dropped into a more serious note. “I love you,” he said slowly, “with the sea, and the sky, and everything in all of us.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Katara’s breath hitched in her throat. She rolled over carefully to face him. Their faces ended up just inches away from each other. She folded her arms on the snow, and dropped her chin on them. Sokka copied her effortlessly, and then they were just staring at each other. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Wow,” she whispered. “That’s a lot of love.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Yup,” Sokka replied, and his grin was mischievous, but his eyes were cut from something softer. “I win.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Katara breathed, and something in her chest swelled with an emotion too powerful to name. “No,” she said. “Close, but no, I’ve still got you beat. Sorry.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “How have you got me beat?” </em>
</p><p><em> Katara thought about the night sky, and the lapping of the waves against the ice, and the sparkling stars reflected a thousand times over in the snow. She thought about waking up with the moon, the way it filled her up with a humming in her bones, and made her more, and pulled the world into focus. </em> You were made for the moon, <em> Sokka had said, </em>or it was made for you.</p><p>
  <em> “I love you,” Katara said, her voice nothing more than a whisper, “With the stars, and the moon, and everything in between.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Sokka breathed in and out, and he blinked rapidly. The two of them had been doing a lot of rapid blinking lately, just barely staving off tears. “Wow,” he said, echoing her. “That’s a lot of love.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Katara grinned. “Did I win?” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Sokka laughed, and it kind of sounded like a gasp. Like fear and joy and love all wrapped up in one little burst of air. “Yeah,” he said. “You won.” </em>
</p><p>Katara sat on a railing in the Fire Palace, and she rested her head on Sokka’s shoulder. She thought about her friends, and forever, and the push and pull of the tides, ebb and flow.</p><p>“Sokka,” she said. “I love you. With the stars, and the moon, and everything in between.”</p><p>Sokka laughed, and this time it sounded like joy, and love, and hope all shoved into one little breath, because for all Sokka loved logic, he felt too deeply to ever put entirely into words. </p><p>“And I love you,” he murmured, “With the sea, and the sky, and everything in all of us.”</p><p>Maybe Katara wasn’t a hero. Maybe she was just a girl who tried. But that was okay. Happily ever afters were overrated.</p><p>She thought about their friends, from all different worlds, melting together in a twisting, beautiful collage, filling each other’s cracks up with time, and love, and healing.</p><p>Katara never thought she would make it this far. Forever was a wonderful word. She intended to savor it.</p><p>Katara breathed through the bruises, and she stared at the stars, and the moon, and she didn’t crack under the weight of everything she never had. She loved everything she did have too much to.</p><p><em>Not a happy ending, </em>she thought. <em>But a good one.</em></p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Language Key! (And Extra Stuff)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Language Key (I know, shocking) and a nice poem.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Ok, the Shel Silverstein poem was not in the fic, but I love it, and it related, and everyone should know it, so I stuck it in here just for kicks.</p><p>Also, if you see words in the language key not used in any of the fics, it means they have been used in a draft i haven't published yet. Don't stress. I know that would have bugged me, and I would have spent too much time rereading to find the words I 'missed', so I thought I'd tell you.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span class="u">
    <span>Language Key</span>
  </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="u">
    <span>Air Nomads</span>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yuoe- (you-OH-ey) moon</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Relame- (reh-la-mey) (</span>
  <em>
    <span>me </span>
  </em>
  <span>pronounced like in mesa) to mourn</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sai- (sigh)(said quickly, like saying </span>
  <em>
    <span>lie</span>
  </em>
  <span>) with</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Relame sai Yuoe- to mourn with the moon; it is a tradition of the Air     Nomads that if you have suffered a great loss, you should try to let yourself begin mourning when the moon rises and cease when the sun rises, as a way of reminding yourself that even though you need to mourn, you should not stop living, that the person/people you are mourning would want you to find peace and happiness, too.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Erave- (eh-RAH-vey) spirit, add -</span>
  <em>
    <span>v </span>
  </em>
  <span>to the end to make plural, spirits (</span>
  <em>
    <span>Eravev). </span>
  </em>
  <span>The word refers to either a spirit(s) that can be named, or one that cannot. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Uole- (oo-OH-lay) song, or expression of feelings</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eravev-Uole- prayers for the spirits; the Air Nomads give thanks and gratitude for nature, and the world that they live in, either with traditional chants or with personal ones of their own making. They can be given at any time, in any way that is not disrespectful to the spirits, but are usually given at least once a month. The chants are believed to give the spirits recognition, and that by acknowledging them, the people will be more listened to by the spirits. The other nations used to have similar practices, but they faded away over time. This has left the Air Nomads with a closer relationship to the spirits of nature than other cultures, as they acknowledge both spirits that can be named, and spirits that cannot be named, by using the collective term </span>
  <em>
    <span>Eravev, </span>
  </em>
  <span>instead of only acknowledging the major spirits with well known names (ex. Tui and La, Agni, ect.)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Quere- to share</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Vidale- life</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cuolefar Heobe- (COO-oh-LAY-far A-oh-BAY)creeping lilies, a type of flower that grows by the Southern Air Temple; they cling to rocks, and bloom in the spring, and over the course of the spring, they shift from their beginning pinks to purples. Also called </span>
  <em>
    <span>Anefar Jurente </span>
  </em>
  <span>by the children of the temple</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Anefar Jurente-(Anay-FAR who-REN-tay) sundrop flowers; another name for </span>
  <em>
    <span>Cuolefar Heobe</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Quere Vidale- (COO-eh-re vee-DAH-lay)an old tradition in which one observes another culture through someone who actively practices in a place where it is actively practiced </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Veshereh- (veh-sher-eh)soul sibling, a very powerful way of saying, ‘you are my family’. It places emphasis on emotional bonds, and a very deep feeling of love and care. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Anefar Oanii- (Anay-FAR oh-AH-ni) sun oasis, a string of connected ledges high on the cliff above the Western Air Temple with small pools and gardens that are traditionally tended to by the children of the temple</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="u">
    <span>Water Tribes</span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <br/>
    <br/>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span class="u">
    <span>Southern</span>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Te Kavéle- (Teh Kah-VEH-leh) literally means, </span>
  <em>
    <span>you rot, </span>
  </em>
  <span>but it is also a curse word used to speak ill of someone else, meaning that they are lower than rot, or, </span>
  <em>
    <span>I hope that you rot</span>
  </em>
  <span>. To add -</span>
  <em>
    <span>ne </span>
  </em>
  <span>to the end is to say the curse directly to the person you are speaking with (</span>
  <em>
    <span>Te Kavélene).</span>
  </em>
  <span> It is a term of utmost disrespect, and is not ever used in a joking manner.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Fecin- (feh-siin, siin sharp and short) a piece of poop, or something that no one wants to be around, even just for long enough to deal with it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Shaimek- (SHY-meck) brother, either emotional or biological; to add -</span>
  <em>
    <span>e </span>
  </em>
  <span>to the end is to place emphasis on</span>
  <em>
    <span> little </span>
  </em>
  <span>brother (Shaimeke), and to add -</span>
  <em>
    <span>a </span>
  </em>
  <span>to the end is to put emphasis on </span>
  <em>
    <span>big </span>
  </em>
  <span>brother (Shaimeka) (can be used as a technical term or a term of endearment)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Shaimel-(SHY-mel) sister, either emotional or biological; to add -</span>
  <em>
    <span>e </span>
  </em>
  <span>to the end is to place emphasis on</span>
  <em>
    <span> little </span>
  </em>
  <span>sister (Shaimele), and to add -</span>
  <em>
    <span>a </span>
  </em>
  <span>to the end is to put emphasis on </span>
  <em>
    <span>big </span>
  </em>
  <span>sister (Shaimela) (can be used as a technical term or a term of endearment)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Teiekiou- (tey-EE-KEY-oo) empty head, an insult used to say basically, your brain is not there, or your brain </span>
  <em>
    <span>is </span>
  </em>
  <span>there, but you choose not to use it</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hue Weamen Tewakel- the warm night, the part of the polar winter when the sun does not rise above the horizon, and everyone stays inside and reconnects with their family</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jeunik- (Zhay-oo-nick) a type of seasoning made from seaweed that is dried and then ground into a fine powder, used in many different types of Water Tribe cuisine. There are three different kinds of seaweed used for different types of jeunik, and each is only able to be harvested for about three weeks per year.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Qanikejes- (KA-knee-KEH-zhes) pests; a word to insult people you consider friends or family without risking insult, because used as an insult, it is considered tame, with an understanding of the fact that the person using it cares about you</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Retamue Untii- (reh-tah-MOO-EY oon-TEA) literally, </span>
  <em>
    <span>goodbye until, </span>
  </em>
  <span>Retamue Untii is a song sung traditionally by soldiers, usually family, who are separating for a battle that they may not return from. Its lyrics express sadness at having to part, but the hope that it will not be permanent. In the case of death however, the song implies that they will see each other again after their time on earth is done. The use of Retamue Untii, instead of Retamue Hewinaa, means that the singers believe, or at the very least hope, that they will see each other again before death, or will survive the battle and be reunited. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Retamue Hewinaa- (reh-tah-MOO-EY hue-ee-NAH) Literally, </span>
  <em>
    <span>final goodbye, </span>
  </em>
  <span>Retamue Hewinaa is traditionally sung when the singers know it is the last time they will see each other on earth. It can be sung on deathbeds, in parting, or when soldiers separate for a battle from which they know they will not return. The song expresses love, and good wishes, and implies hope that they will be reunited when Death comes for them, and they leave the earth for the last time.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yeune- (yay-oo-nay) elder, or </span>
  <em>
    <span>person who has seen more than me, </span>
  </em>
  <span>Yuene is a weighty term of respect with heavy cultural significance</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Waivema Quinave- (WHY-vem-ah KEY-nah-VEY) literally, </span>
  <em>
    <span>highest waterbender, </span>
  </em>
  <span>this term is used universally by both tribes. It is an esteemed position in which one is recognized as the best waterbender in the world. The title is gained by either formally challenging the previous Waivema Quinave to a duel, and winning, or if the previous holder of the title dies or formally renounces the title and names someone his or her successor. Holding the title grants the holder significant power in both tribes, as they are usually well respected, and their opinions hold significant weight.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span class="u">
    <span>Northern</span>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <strong>???</strong>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>
  <span class="u">
    <span>Earth Kingdom</span>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yetan Gegar- a type of food, consisting of cooked meats and/or vegetables in wraps of thin crust.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Reca we, gengai- (Ray-ka WAY gen-GUY) for you, again; an expression used to say, ‘this was worth it, for you’, or ‘this was no problem’, or, literally, ‘I would do this again for you’ but is associated with feelings of fondness or care</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ue gethahew ne kow jinawel undue peones, neu kow jinawel yen ues amoren tekahanes. - I fight not for the blood on my hands, but for the blood in the veins of my loved hearts</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kentare- (ken-TAH-rey) little, used as either a descriptor or a term of endearment.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="u">
    <span>Fire Nation </span>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Enhaou kai- (en-HOW-OO kai) teacher, or, person more intelligent than me whom I hold in high respect; it is one of the few gender neutral honorifics in the Fire Nation language</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mhakenyik- (Ma-ken-YEEK) literally means </span>
  <em>
    <span>not yet big</span>
  </em>
  <span>, a term of endearment used to imply smallness, but also great potential</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Blodfrewj-(Bluth-FREW-zh) blood-traitor, betrayer</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Juan Hyemina- (joo-AHN hyeh-ME-nuh) literally </span>
  <em>
    <span>air sugar</span>
  </em>
  <span>, a Fire Nation town on one of the smaller islands in the archipelago</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hau Lingja- (hwah LING- zhuh) literallly </span>
  <em>
    <span>red river, </span>
  </em>
  <span>a town in the Fire Nation named for the massive rust-colored river it sits near</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Openaiv- (oh-PEN-NAIV) another Fire Nation town on one of the larger islands, renowned for its impressive sea trade and extensive underground bending leagues</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Wenshaou te- (WHEN-shao-oo tey) woman of great courage and strength; this honorific is generally used for figures of high authority or power, and usually denotes that the speaker wishes to imply that the person they are speaking to or about is greater than they are</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="u">
    <span>Extra</span>
  </span>
</p><p><span class="u"><em><span>Happy Endings?</span></em></span>by Shel Silverstein.</p><p>There are no happy endings. </p><p>Endings are the saddest part,</p><p>So just give me a happy middle</p><p>And a very happy start.</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>*This upcoming section has nothing to do with my fics, but please please please read it anyway, it is very important, especially now. It is mainly aimed at my fellow USA people, but anyone can and should read it.</p><p>This world that we live in is amazing. How lucky are we, to live in a world where the sun comes in the morning and the moon at night, and there are thousands of tiny miracles everywhere if you care to look? This world is amazing, and we as humans have made amazing things, too. Art, and music, and laughter, and unity, and familial bonds that make life worth living.<br/>But I'm not naive, and I know we do some pretty awful things too. As evidenced by what is happening right now in the US. This is my country. I love it. And I am appalled. The things that are happening, from institutionalized racism to environmental decline to severe political corruption, are awful, and should not be tolerated. </p><p>Not everyone can be a public speaker, or a social activist, or someone leading the difference from the front lines. But that doesn't mean we can't help. Large acts of defiance can make the world better, and so can small acts of kindness. Tell your friends and family you love them, help out someone you know, smile at the neighbors you know. Try to make yourself better a little every day. We can't help the bias placed in us by society, but we can help our reaction to it.</p><p>Not everyone can be loud in their change, and I believe that's okay. You can be quiet with your change. But what none of us can afford to do is be silent. If we continue to tolerate the awful things happening in this country, and across the world, they will keep happening. Until they are no longer socially acceptable, they will continue with the same fire they do now.</p><p>Inform yourself. If you can vote, VOTE. Call or email or send letters to your representatives. Do not tolerate bigotry in others, or yourself. Be kind to others. And, if you are so inclined, visit this link-&gt; https://www.change.org/petitions to sign petitions for change. It is so easy, it takes only a few minutes to find petitions and even less to sign. It even has buttons to share petitions with others. </p><p>We need to make a difference. And we can all start. Even if how we fight is different, what matters is that we are fighting together.</p><p>Every day on the planet with all of the other beautiful beings on it will never get old to me. I want to keep seeing the wonder in the little places, and I want to be able to see them in big place, too. Be kind, and strong, and try to find some happiness in this crazy, amazing world we call our own. Stay safe, and I love you all!</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hello! How was it? Angsty? Bittersweet? A masterpiece? Hot turtleseal crap? Well, you're still here, so either I did something right, or it was like those movies you can't stop watching because it's like an ongoing trainwreck that gets worse each second and you have a morbid fascination with the ongoing disaster beforre you.<br/>Do you guys read all my rambling in the notes? It's totally just to amuse myself, but I hope it gives you some amusement to watch me be chaotic, too.<br/>Oooof, you guys, this one hurt me as I was writing it. I knew where I was going with this, and even I was not prepared.<br/>I love Sokka and Katara's sibling relationship more than words can say. And I love Kataang so much, I had to stick a little in there, but if you don't ship it, I hope it wasn't too much. I love Hakoda so much, don't get me wrong, but I feel like Katara and Sokka deserved to be bitter and angry about him leaving them behind, no matter why he did it, because they're children, and that had to suck. But fear not, fellow Hakoda lovers, he will come back in future fic(s?), and they will figure it out. </p><p>I just strongly feel that these kids have really awful trauma, and I feel like Katara's would be just horrible because like. To be fourteen, and responsible for fixing all of you friends if they start dying would be awful pressure, especially if one time she failed. So I have strong feelings about Katara, Child Healer.<br/>(Grammar Police, police away. I welcome anything you can tell me to help me improve my writing.) </p><p>I was high key projecting with Katara's flaskback to her talk with Sokka about how much they love each other. For my sisters, who I love with the stars, and the moon, and everything in between.</p><p>I loved writing this, even if it was super melancholy and had me in pain. I am happy with how it turned out, and I hope you liked it as much as I did!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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